


Pasithea

by Clockwork_Sky (failsafe)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Episode Related, Episode: s03e10 Forever in a Day, F/M, M/M, Pre-Slash, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-27
Updated: 2010-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/Clockwork_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sha're's death, Daniel has reluctantly become accustomed to life without her. Months later, Daniel is confronted with more readjustments when Sha're, apparently alive and well, meets him with news of impending peril and an enemy that transcends the bounds of reality itself. Soon, Jack and Daniel find themselves pulled away from the world they know and in the company of Sha're who guides them in a cross-universe misadventure to save both the world they know and worlds of lost dreams and hope never to be had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [au_bigbang](http://au_bigbang.livejournal.com) 2010.
> 
> Artist was the lovely [LJ]weaselett.
> 
> Beta'd by [LJ]karathephantom and [LJ]vipersweb.
> 
> I was also helped by [LJ]jedi_of_urth and [LJ]victorilove.
> 
> Not my favorite thing I've ever written, but it's long and it's finished.

 

 

* * *

Only a few blocks away from his apartment, Daniel Jackson pressed his knee down on the stubborn door of a front-loading dryer.

Another armful of wet clothes was deposited into the thing, which had a smell that was suspiciously like old, dried flowers—something that made Daniel turn his face to the bend of his elbow and sneeze as soon as he had let the door spring shut.

His allergies were just another part of an everyday life. An everyday life that went on here, on Earth.

Outside, the dusk had turned to night, and above the city, the stars had come out. It was hard to believe that there had been a time when home had been anywhere but this planet called Earth. Although, perhaps that thought was just something Daniel comforted himself with. After all, perhaps the thing that seemed even more unreal was that he had ever had to leave Abydos.

A life that now almost felt like a dream--a life that some might insist actually had been a dream--had faded away as if it had never existed.

Here he was, on Earth, back from the dead--it had been three years now.

Ultimately, Jack had been right--he couldn't have just walked away from the Stargate program. At least he had been able to keep one more promise to Sha're. She had needed him one more time. He hadn't been able to save her, but at least he had been able to make sure the only part of her that was left was safe.

Then they had returned through the Stargate--the Chappa'ai--and here he was back on the ground, back beneath the stars, as if none of it were anything more than a dream.

Here, beneath the stars, alone and doing laundry.

\---

Two more coins into a slot, three more button presses, five more shirts to fold.

As soon as Daniel had finished filling one more small, round clothes basket, he set it at his feet and fumbled around in the supplies he had with him until he found a leather-bound journal--out of place it was amongst bottles of laundry detergent and fabric softener.

Opening it, he pulled a pen from between its pages and touched its tip to the paper. Every time he did that now, he knew it would remind him--remind him of her.

He reread the last passage, and there simply wasn't anything important to add. He clicked his pen over and over until the sound seemed louder than the rumbling of the machines buzzing and echoing throughout the laundromat.

His eyes lost focus--and for a moment he remembered being in the infirmary, fading in and out of consciousness, awakening just once to see her face.

But he had been dreaming--hadn't he?

Daniel shook himself and finally gave up on writing anything down. There were some things that simply couldn't be expressed in words, even a linguist had to admit.

He closed the journal and set it on top of a pile of neatly folded black tee shirts.

His eyes focused on the plate glass window, on the back of the lettering that explained the hours, the name, and the address. Outside, someone walked past, their silhouette elongating for a brief moment beneath the street lamp. Just as quickly, the stranger passed by, and Daniel didn't consciously think about who it might have been. Simple things like that just didn't matter.

Still, the power of suggestion made Daniel's legs begin to feel heavy, stiff, laden with adrenaline that had no just cause.

He cleared his throat and leaned forward, stacking both of his filled laundry baskets--one white, the other a rather dull shade of blue--on top of one another.

He just needed to move his legs--he'd take the finished laundry out to the car and he would come right back. After all, he was alone in the laundromat this time of night.

\---

The wee hours of the morning seemed even more unnaturally silent than usual.

The jingling of Daniel's keys punctuated the echo in the alley. The clothes baskets settled into an unnatural calm in the back of the car. Everything was simply so ordinary that Daniel didn't notice the soft, measured footsteps approaching him.

As soon as the stack of books was pushed out of the way, to one side of the backseat instead of being sprawled across its entirety, as soon as that stack of books had toppled over and Daniel had awkwardly scrambled to keep any of them from being even more damaged than the sun had already made them, as soon as the baskets were stacked carefully in the space he had made for them, Daniel noticed it.

Something in the air. Something he had never been able to exactly explain with all his expertise regarding human development. That tingle down the back of his neck--that something some people called a soldier's sense. Something, someone was watching him.

He swallowed hard and turned around, glancing down once to make sure his keys were still looped around one of his fingers. His hand curled around the car door, for some reason he felt himself hesitating about whether or not he should close it.

He half-expected that he was getting nervous over nothing. He just knew there would be a large but harmless stray dog staring at him, intent on seeing if this particular biped had any fast food scraps in his car.

Daniel Jackson turned around, his back against his car. His blue, bespectacled eyes blinked once, opened, and focused.

Not a stray dog, then.

Standing before him was the only thing that Daniel knew was absolutely and completely impossible.

Traveling through the stars, everywhere no man had gone before, and here on a street in Colorado Springs, here that one thing--she--was.

He wasn't sure of the sequence of events at that point. He wasn't sure how or when exactly the keyring had slipped from his finger and hit the pavement with a discordant jingle.

He wasn't sure when he had automatically tried to kneel down to reach them, only to have the car door fall closed and bounce off his finger--thankfully not actually latching on it--such that anything he might have said was muffled by the finger that he was sucking the pain away from in his mouth.

She stepped forward, steadily, her body language exactly the same as it had always been. That strange, graceful, confident kind of humility and deference he had never understood nor felt he deserved.

She bent down and retrieved the keyring, picking it up reverentially, holding it out the way someone might hold out a used tissue away from their hand but with decidedly less distaste. There was something regal in her presence. There always had been, and even now it was not dampened by the night, the impossibility of the moment, or the dark green, plain jumpsuit she was wearing—Air Force issue, Daniel recognized somewhere in the back of his mind, but it was the very last thing that mattered.

Her hand outstretched to him, the dangling keys seeming to reflect the street lamps and the moon with unnatural intensity.

"Sha're," he had finally managed to say around his bruised finger. His tone was clear, factual, almost entirely devoid of emotion--or sound for that matter, he had hardly been able to breathe her name--simply because he couldn't find one that fit anywhere in his mental arsenal.

"Husband," she gently chastised with a smirk, her rich brown eyes focusing on his hand. She reached out for his wrist, wishing to survey the damage for herself.

Daniel couldn't respond with anything except an inarticulate stammering noise as he felt her familiar touch, felt her fingers wrap around his wrist and pull his saliva-dampened finger out from his palm.

The silence was perfect for a second, so much so that Daniel half-expected this to be the end to another of his dreams where she was alive. The sound always seemed to be the first thing to go when he was about to wake up.

Instead, she broke the silence once again with a slightly uncomfortable chuckle and clearing of her throat, and, as soon as she straightened his finger and looked down at it, she looked back up into his eyes. Most exotic, deep brown meeting clean, clear blue.

"Daniel," she said, that same strange, familiar pronunciation, swallowing hard as she held his hand, palm up, in her own. The way she tone in which she said it, it almost seemed as if she were correcting herself.

"What?" he asked, though he wasn't really sure whether he was answering her or asking something himself. In fact, he wasn't sure of anything, because he couldn't think.

"It is not broken," she said, carefully manipulating his finger to curl it back into his palm, leaving everything as she had found it almost compulsively. She pulled her hands back, exposing her palms and fingertips in a forward-facing, peaceful gesture. Then she gradually let them fall to her side, balling them in upon themselves.

"What isn't?"

"Your finger," she reminded him. Gently this time, not bothering to scold or to laugh at him. For her, she reminded herself, there would be plenty of that.

"Oh," was all he said, pulling his hand up and glancing at it as he flexed his fingers. But as soon as his eyes even began to move away from her, he forced them to snap back, as if she might just disappear. It hadn't been the first time.

"How--" he started to say.

"I cannot stay long, Daniel," she said, again with that strange emphasis on his name, an emphasis that made her furrow her eyebrows slightly.

"Of course not," he replied sadly. He didn't really take into account how he might have sounded to her--after all, it was impossible to believe that she was real. He had found the boy--his promise was kept, and he had believed that maybe, finally, his nights wouldn't be plagued by the constant haunting of a world that was no longer his, a life he would never, ever have.

Another moment of silence on that impossibly quiet, ordinary street. The moment when he would wake up.

"Here," Sha're began, explaining what she meant carefully, "here... is he safe?"

"The boy. The Harsesis. Yes, of course," Daniel said, licking his lips.

...she really was here. One more time. He didn't question how--there would be plenty of time for that when this was over.

This, the last time. He knew that the moment he answered the question, she would be gone again. There was no reason and no way for her to stay.

He wondered for a moment if he could simply not answer the question, if the moment might go on forever, if she might stay that way and he would never wake up from this dream--or whatever it was.

Then he realized that, even if it weren't completely impossible and would work, he couldn't do that to her.

He was her husband, she was his wife, and he had made a promise to her.

Daniel reached out, holding his breath as he gently cupped Sha're's chin, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

He carefully brushed her hair behind her ear, catching a strand of it between his index and middle fingers, letting it slip between them to its end.

Finally, gently rubbing her shoulder, staring into her eyes, memorizing once more her face, he realized that he did have to answer her eventually.

"The boy is fine. He's safe," he assured her, swallowing hard, waiting for her to be swept away from him again.

Sha're smiled softly, and Daniel felt his heart breaking even more as the smile actually reached her eyes.

She pursed her lips together before she looked down, preparing to tell him the rest of her message. This shouldn't be so difficult.

"Then it is time," she sighed, sadly, momentarily oblivious to just how strange it must sound to him.

"For you to... go..." Daniel concluded, swallowing and biting his lower lip, gripping her shoulder even tighter, trying to keep his voice from breaking. He felt the tears stinging behind his eyes, the heat coming to his face and chest as he fought them.

"Only for a while... Daniel," she said, pausing. She was being hesitant—Daniel recognized it in the way he recognized nearly every other expression and tone his wife had.

"W-What?" Daniel asked, not daring to hope.

"...I am only going for a while this time, Daniel. I will return. At least... At least once more," she explained, her tone careful and confident. She couldn't think about how difficult it was going to be to turn away, to leave, knowing what she must be doing to him—her Daniel.

"B-But... how...?" he stammered, trying to choose the appropriate question.

Sha're sighed and shook her head, gently reaching up and pressing her fingertips to his lips.

"Sshh," she soothed him. "I _must_ go. But...I promise... Once more."

He opened his mouth against her hushing fingers and felt a shiver run down the back of his neck, but before he could say or do anything she pulled her hand back and looked him in the eye once, then backed away, step by step.

As soon as she had put a gulf of space between them, she looked down, away, and reached down into her pocket.

And just like that, she was gone.

Disappeared into a bright flash of white light.

Once again the night was full of silence.

But Daniel realized that this time, it hadn't been a dream. At least, if it had been, he hadn't awakened, and there was a promise of another.

Utterly stunned and dazed, Daniel swallowed and rubbed his thumb over the keys, staring alternately at them and the space where Sha're had seemingly been moments before.

When he finally managed to blink, to move, he ran around the car and unlocked the driver's side door and got in, utterly forgetting that last load of whites in the cranky old drier.

~~~

Daniel wasn't headed back to his own apartment. He couldn't go back there, not now.

Several miles out of downtown Colorado Springs, Daniel pulled into an equally familiar driveway. Glancing along its length, he could see light still softly emanating from the windowed room at the end of the house. Well, at least he wasn't asleep.

With a single deep breath, a sigh of frustration, Daniel briefly leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, trying to think of any rational explanation, any reason to just put the car in reverse and go home.

The car door slammed shut, and Daniel's keys jingled as they fell into his pants' pocket. The walk to the front door was strange—it seemed to take forever, but he was numb, tingling, as if nothing around him was actually real.

A dizzying, dull, throbbing headache set in as he knocked on the door hesitantly, like he had just been in a room full of ozone.

Jack answered the door in sweatpants and some Chicago sports team shirt, a jar of peanut butter in his left hand. He looked quizzically at Daniel with a spoon in his mouth.

"Da-well. Ho' cam I hep oo?" he asked. Articulately, Daniel thought, considering the mass of paste in his mouth.

"Can I talk to you?"

"You are talking to me," Jack said after having dry-swallowed the lump in his mouth. He focused his eyes on his spoon and jar, working on digging out another carefully selected spoonful. Wordlessly, he stepped back a bit more, holding the door open for Daniel with his elbow.

"Yes, but... about something important," Daniel explained as he stepped into the house, slipping off his shoes out of rote habit.

Normally, Jack would have come up with some quip appropriate for Daniel's heartfelt request, but he had just gotten his spoon primed, so he humored his friend.

"Shoot," he replied around the spoon as he guided Daniel into the living room, freeing the spoon from the brownish paste.

Daniel sat down on the couch, elbows on his knees and cradled his temples in his hands.

"I think I'm going insane," he announced evenly, focusing on an astronomy magazine whose shiny surface greeted him as he looked at the coffee table.

"This is a recent problem for you?" Jack asked, mouth once again empty of the peanut butter.

"Jack--"

"All right, all right," the older man sighed, leaning forward and placing the peanut butter jar on the coffee table, right on top of the magazine.

When Daniel looked up at Jack, discerning if this had been an intentional diversion of his focus, he saw that Jack was offering him the spoon.

"Peanut butter?"

"No..." Daniel said slowly, carefully, looking at the spoon, then at Jack. At this point, he was wondering if Jack was really the person he needed to be talking to about mental health. Although, to be fair, Jack's problem wasn't so much with sanity as it was social propriety and cues in _any_ culture, including his own. "No, thank you..."

"Your loss. So what's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Daniel admitted, leaning his back against the sofa. "Something... really weird happened at the laundromat tonight," he began, barreling ahead before Jack could make the next crack that he could see forming on his friend's lips. "I... I thought I saw Sha're there."

Jack's expression immediately changed from smirking, waiting on the next opportunity to pick at Daniel, to one of surprise, then concern.

"Daniel--"

"I know, I know, it's impossible. I know she's... gone. But it doesn't change what I saw--"

"Maybe we should see if we can call up old Doc' Fraiser, see if she could check you out," Jack suggested cautiously, actually making an effort not to sound condescending. Even if he understood virtually nothing else about human emotion and behavior—well, other human's emotions and behaviors—he did understand loss.

"Jack," Daniel objected anyway, voice going into a higher, more insistent tone. "Jack, I don't need to talk to a doctor. I came here to talk to you. I... Why don't you believe me?"

"You don't believe yourself, Daniel..."

"That's not the point! I know it's impossible that she was there—but... she was," he said helplessly. In spite of the fact that he had spent some portion of every single day for the past nine months wishing that he could have done something, anything differently that day, that Sha're was still alive, there was absolutely nothing good about this feeling. "We... We've done, we've seen the impossible, right?"

"Daniel, I don't know..."

"What else could it be?"

"What do _you_ think it is?"

Daniel sighed and laced his fingers together, looking down at the way they overlapped with interest—for a moment thinking of anything but the fact that he would once again have to deny a hope that he had already won and lost far too many times.

"I suppose you're right," he conceded, but couldn't stop himself from continuing to hope, if only for a moment more. "But she did say one more time."


	2. Chapter 2

_Five Months Previously_

Two of the Tau'ri's months had passed since the Tok'ra had been able to remove the demon from Sha're's body. In some sense, it felt like a lifetime of freedom. On the other hand, rebuilding a life here on Daniel's Earth was difficult enough if not for what his people needed from her. The mission to Kheb had resulted in the Harsesis child being hidden away where the gods could not find him. In his absence, Sha're was the only one who contained any of the gods' secrets.

Released from her cell in her mind, she was now free to walk among the ghosts, the traces of memories left behind by Amaunet.

A portion of time each day was spent in a small, bare room, supposedly free of distraction. Sitting at a table with a soft-spoken Dr. Fraiser who asked her questions and encouraged her to drop her mental defenses—after all, there was no more demon now. Information had slowly piled up, but for the past week, she had been unable to progress at all and went home every day completely exhausted, in spite of the doctor's best efforts to keep her comfortable.

Sha're refocused her eyes, the world fading back to the dull blues and grays that characterized the base. A stark contrast with the warm, rich yellows and oranges she had been accustomed to, both on Abydos and in her time with the false gods—flickers of memory that she was forced to return to constantly that she only wished she could forget.

Her legs were pulled tight to her chest and she grabbed hold of a section of her hair, smoothing it through her fingers over and over and over. She stared at it, at the way she could make the light's reflection bend in it as she ran her fingers across it.

Janet sighed a little when she saw Sha're return to herself again, no longer out among the stars but very present—she understood the other woman's desire to be, but perhaps the most difficult thing to watch was the fact that even as she was once again only thinking about the present moment, she seemed so nervous. But, to be fair, Janet had to admit, two years of a life that wasn't your own would be rough on anybody.

"Mrs. Jackson?" she prompted, always careful to use her utmost bedside manner and respect with the young woman who was still obviously confused and put off by the way a doctor of any capacity operated.

Sha're glanced up from the strand of her hair and slowly let go of it. She wasn't used to people calling her that—in fact, when she had come here, O'Neill had had to explain to her what it meant. On Abydos, her name had been the one her father had given her and hers alone. Daniel's name had been his name. The blending of the two was a bit confusing—but she had ultimately decided that she liked it.

She refocused her eyes somewhere on the reflective surface of the metal tabletop and shook her head slowly, deliberately.

"I truly believe that is all I remember."

"That's all right," Dr. Fraiser said, reaching out and gently squeezing Sha're's hand reassuringly. "We can stop for today."

Sha're smiled weakly and nodded. She opened her mouth to say something, but there was a knock on the door before she could speak.

"Sure you're all right?" Janet asked quickly.

Another nod sufficed as Sha're wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them closer.

"Come in," Janet called more loudly. Immediately the door knob turned and Daniel entered, just back from an off-world mission. His cheeks were covered in lines of turquoise paint, extending from the nose, which remained uncovered, like so many faint-paint whiskers. Janet only gave him a quizzical look before he shrugged dismissively.

"Don't ask. We were...ah... _welcomed_."

Before Daniel had finished, Sha're had already began laughing helplessly, covering her face against her knees, scarcely being able to muffle her giggles.

"Sha're--" Daniel almost whined. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't really all that funny. He wanted to tell her that her people had various traditions that might make _him_ laugh. Instead, though, he was trying very hard not to smile himself as he walked over to her, again almost enchanted. It was so good to see her laugh.

"The thanks I get for checking on you," he did remark through a grin as he took another of the chairs next to his wife and lightly hugged her around her shoulders. Still giggling but slowly getting hold of herself, Sha're leaned her head against his shoulder, further muffling her laughter into his shirt.

She did know that face paint itself wasn't funny—it was only the absurdity of seeing Daniel wear it, and in such a bright color, since the men of his planet did not wear any at all. Only the women seemed to and in much more subtle ways.

"How did today go?" he asked, first glancing down at Sha're for an answer, but she was still not ready to take him seriously again. He was quite used to that. Turning his attention toward Dr. Fraiser still met him with a chuckle—but he would endure it.

"I think Sha're and I have been over everything I currently can go over with her that would be of any use. Our attempts at getting further information seem to have come to a stalemate for the time being, so I'm going to recommend that we stop these sessions at least for a little while. I think Sha're would agree that she is well-deserving of some rest?" she asked, finally managing to meet the younger woman's eyes, still lit with amusement.

"I do not wish to be a disappointment to the cause of the Tau'ri," she said seriously, glancing up at Daniel with the hope of advice.

"It's nothing like that, Sha're," he explained gently. "If you remember anything you can always come back to it. If you want to stop now, it's up to you..."

Daniel was so very unlike the men on her planet. Her father would have made the decision for her. This was both frustrating and the very reason that she loved her husband. Still, she did not know what to say...

Janet and Daniel were both looking at her, waiting for an answer she did not know, so she was almost relieved when the flashing red light and wailing sound cut the deliberation short.

_"...Unscheduled Off-World Activation... Unscheduled Off-World Activation..."_

Daniel got up out of habit, gripping Sha're's shoulder.

"Shall we?"

"I'd better get to the infirmary," Janet said dismissively, gathering her notes and stacking them neatly into Sha're's file—something that was rather thick and extensive, considering the brief amount of time she had been on Earth. "Never know what the cat's gonna drag in."

"One actually did, recently. Don't jinx it to be something worse," Daniel chuckled as the three of them left the room.

Moving down the hallway in step with her husband, Sha're frowned at the blaring klaxon and looked up at him.

"What is happening, my husband?" she asked calmly. Most of her time in the SGC had been spent in deep thought, far away from the control room. Trusting that Daniel and O'Neill understood what was happening, it had never occurred to her to be concerned with the strange sounds—when they had sounded, she had not been at liberty to investigate and ignoring them was the only way to keep her curious mind focused.

"Oh, that's right," Daniel said, pausing mid-stride very briefly and lighting up a bit. He loved explaining things about his world to Sha're. "You haven't been to the St—the Chappa'ai since they brought you here from the Tok'ra."

She smiled and nodded, patting the back of his arm to remind him to keep moving.

"Oh," he said, skipping a few steps and moving more quickly as he continued to explain. "That sound means that something...unusual is happening. Sometimes it's bad—_usually_ it's bad, but not always. An incoming wormhole is what we call it when someone is going to come through the Chappa'ai to Earth. Unauthorized—well, that means it's not necessarily anyone we know," he chuckled nervously as they made their way from the stairs to the control room.

"Daniel, nice of you to join us," Jack remarked, busy rubbing his face with a towel of some sort as he glanced away from the window above the Stargate. "And you brought Sha're, what a nice surprise!" he said as sincerely as he could. "How do you like his make-up?" he asked her, smirking at the paint still streaking Daniel's face.

"It's not--" Daniel started to explain automatically, but both Sha're and Jack seemed intent on ignoring his explanation as she began to laugh again, trying to hold herself back, and Jack seemed quite pleased with this accomplishment.

"How did you get yours off so fast?" Daniel pursued instead, giving up for the moment.

"I've got connections."

"Indeed," Daniel replied, rolling his eyes and shoving his hands down into his pockets as he glanced at Sha're a bit like a ridiculed puppy as she continued to be amused by the tribal paint adorning his cheeks.

"That's Teal'c's line," Jack corrected.

"O'Neill, you had this paint as well?" Sha're asked.

"No. Mine was much better. It was orange."

"Do we know what's going on?" Daniel sighed, moving over toward Teal'c and Sam, who was busy moving between the computer terminals, leaning over and trying to help the technicians find the answer to Daniel's question.

"Not yet," she said, glancing back over her shoulder. She started a bit and then smiled warmly. "Hi Sha're."

"Samantha Carter," she returned with an almost reverential nod.

"Oh, what is it with you two?" he asked, elbowing Teal'c and looking at Sha're.

"To what do you refer?" Teal'c asked evenly, glancing down slowly at his forearm and then at Jack with a marginally quirked eyebrow.

"You with the 'Daniel Jackson' this, and her with calling Carter by her full name..." Jack explained with a sigh, turning his attention back to Daniel. "You don't have to be so formal with us," Jack insisted, playfully pleading with Sha're. He only wanted Daniel's wife to feel comfortable so far away from her home. And she had just lost a child. Well, it was more complicated than that, but—at that point Jack decided not to think anymore.

"Is not a person to be called by their name?" she asked, dismissive of Jack's suggestion. She did not know Sam well enough to call her something so simple.

"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?" General Hammond asked as he came in from his office moments later.

"It's the Tok'ra, sir," Sam answered quickly as she confirmed this again with her eyes. Then she turned and stood up straight. "Requesting permission to--"

"Go ahead, Major."

"Thank you, sir."

Sam ran down to the Gate Room and was already waiting when the Tok'ra representatives came through the rippling surface of the event horizon. Her eyes lit up when it was as she had hoped.

"Dad!"

"Hello, Sam," Jacob replied warmly, but something in his smile was forced, just before he hugged his daughter quickly, though he seemed quite distracted.

Oh well, Sam thought with only a slight sting of disappointment. It wasn't anything new. That was when she fully noticed who was accompanying her father.

"Martouf," she said, her tone strained as she wasn't sure what was the appropriate tone to use with him. He had also been involved in their last encounter with the Tok'ra, one that had proved very confusing, apart from all the other unpleasant things it had been.

"Hello Samantha," he replied warmly, without any of the reservations her father had, though his eyes were still somewhat dull.

"Seeing both of you together twice in a row—gotta say it's a bit unusual. In a... good way," she said, looking back and forth between her dad and Martouf, awaiting some kind of explanation.

"Ah, this one I can't seem to keep off with a stick," Jacob carried on with a half-hearted smirk as he patted Martouf on the shoulder. "Especially not when it comes to visiting _Earth_."

"My intentions here are as honorable as yours, Jacob, I assure you. I may not have come from here, but I owe a great deal to the Tau'ri. Some of them," he said, eyes meeting Sam's without a break in inflection, "I owe my life."

Jacob just smirked and pat Martouf's shoulder a bit more roughly, jarring him from his eye contact with his daughter.

"Honorable intentions my ass," he grumbled. "Still, we've got bigger fish to fry."

Sam shook herself from any distraction caused by this strange turn in events and caused and followed the two Tok'ra down the ramp.

"Did I hear someone say something about 'fish'?" Jack asked as he smiled brightly as the trio approached where the rest of SG-1, Sha're, and General Hammond were waiting near the door.

"Hey there, Jack. General--" he nodded at Hammond. "And how are you?" he asked Sha're, taking special care to be very at ease with her. Selmac, among other things, made him very grateful that he had never experienced a hostile take-over by a symbiote, and he could hardly imagine the kind of identity and confidence issues a person might develop after having something like that removed when it had completely taken over one's mind."

"I am doing quite well," Sha're answered honestly, looking up at Daniel happily again.

"What brings you here, Jacob?" General Hammond asked after he had given ample time for him to finish his due greetings.

"To business, yes. Well, Martouf and I have come here on behalf of the Tok'ra to inform you that our intelligence indicates that Apophis is dead."

"Again?" Daniel asked with no little hope or pleasure in his voice, not caring that it was a bit out of turn as he pulled Sha're protectively closer to him.

"We would love to tell you that this is good news, however it may be a more precarious situation than a stable victory," Martouf explains.

"It always is," Jack said in a bit of a sing-song.

"Let's take this to the briefing room. It sounds like we have a lot to talk about," General Hammond ordered and led the way.

\---

They all assembled around the long table, and before they had even been seated, Martouf eagerly launched into an explanation.

"Recently, there has been a shift in power among the Goa'uld System Lords. Their tenuous alliance has been fractured by the emergence of a new power—a Goa'uld calling himself Morpheus."

"Morpheus?" Daniel asked, a bit startled by the name.

Jack chimed in, thinking that Daniel was startled by the same thing he was for once. "Lawrence Fishburne is a Goa'uld?" he asked. His tone didn't betray whether he was being sarcastic or genuine, but he didn't carry on to explain as he was met with looks varying from incredulous to withering to simply confused all around the table. "Hey, I was just asking--"

"He's the Greek god of dreams," Daniel explained.

"Of course he is," Jack replied, exasperated himself with the fact that the movie always left stuff out. Maybe he really should take to reading more in his time off.

Martouf smiled almost apologetically and nodded.

"I'm not familiar with your term 'Greek,' but he does claim very strong power over the mind. His use of hypnotic and hallucinogenic substances aids him in taking over populations of humans and Jaffa previously loyal to other System Lords, thus making him very dangerous but a potential aid to the cause of crumbling the System Lords' power structure without putting the Tok'ra or our allies into any immediate threat. The Goa'uld Nirrti has proved to be his only ally."

"Morpheus must be indeed powerful if he was able to single-handedly restore Nirrti to power," Teal'c remarked thoughtfully, not a hint of the worry he was experiencing in his tone.

"You'll pardon me for cutting to the chase," General Hammond interjected, waiting for a moment as Martouf and Jacob looked at him, followed by the rest, "but what exactly do the Tok'ra want? If this Goa'uld is more powerful than our current enemies, I really don't see how we can help."

"That's exactly why we came," Jacob interjected. Sam perked up a bit, surprised that her father had remained as quiet as he had. "Earth's new status as an Asgard protected planet may protect you from the System Lords for the time being, but this Morpheus character doesn't have to play by any of the same rules. He has been taking planet after planet, and it's just a matter of time before he comes here."

"Morpheus has been experimenting with technology forbidden by the Goa'uld," Martouf continued in turn. "Something you have encountered before that he wants. Ancient legends speak of a device—a mirror located on a planet you have designated P3R-233—that would allow the user to travel between dimensions of reality."

"The Quantum Mirror," Sam provided, glancing at Jack as she thought of their last experience with that, but she quickly turned her attention back to Martouf.

"What about it?" General Hammond asked impatiently. "I ordered it destroyed. For once, I can actually agree with the Goa'uld. There are some things that just aren't supposed to be tampered with."

"Many species and nations have agreed with you," Martouf replied. "However, I regret to inform you that the Tau'ri are still in possession of this mirror..."

"I'm sorry, son, that's not possible."

"I knew I didn't trust those guys," Jack murmured under his breath.

"I'm sorry," Daniel interjected, raising a finger to ask for a turn to speak, though he didn't wait for anything but for Martouf's eyes to acknowledge it. "How would you know that?"

Sam felt like she had caught the metaphorical falling shoe in her own lap as she looked up, waiting for Martouf to confirm her suspicions.

"We have reason to believe that Morpheus didn't actually come from this universe—well, this version of this universe—at all," Jacob supplied. "He has an alternative version of your mirror from wherever he came from jerry-rigged into his ship's hyperdrive. It's only a matter of time before he shows up here wanting yours, though. The only way he could have gotten here is if he could remotely establish a connection with your mirror—the fact that he's here at all proves that someone at Area 51 managed to fake the destruction of the mirror."

"NID sons of--" Jack started.

"Colonel," Hammond warned, though he couldn't deny that he felt much the same sentiment.

"Sorry, sir."

"You're telling me that this Morpheus can jump into any location he wants in any universe that has one of these mirrors?"

"That is correct," Martouf replied gravely.

"Sitting ducks again," Jack observed, having trouble biting his tongue about how frustrated he was becoming, just sitting here doing nothing.

"What do you propose we do about it?" the General asked.

"Tok'ra intelligence have managed to infiltrate Morpheus' ship, as he is not yet fully aware of our significance as an enemy to the Goa'uld. We have lost three of our operatives, but two remain in close contact with Morpheus' Lo'taur. This has allowed our scientists to study small portions of Morpheus' experimental hypnotic and hallucinogenic drugs, and to examine some of his technology. We have managed to build something that... may help... if the Tau'ri are willing to cooperate." Martouf concluded, his eyes settling on Daniel, rather than General Hammond.

Daniel suddenly felt very uncomfortable and instinctively he took hold of Sha're's hand. Sha're had been listening the entire time, quietly, surprisingly comfortably. Still, she too felt her heart rate increase a bit as she saw how intense the Tok'ra's look was.

"What can we do?" Daniel asked, realizing he was the one, apparently, something was being asked of.

"We have managed to build a device that has narrowed down the possible points of origin for Morpheus' mirror—Morpheus has created a paradox by removing the mirror from its original universe. The reason this research had been long abandoned was because of the potential risk. Morpheus has no reason to care for the collapse of any realities he compromises—there are an infinite number of others for him to subjugate. Every universe he enters is in danger of collapsing."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Daniel, I don't think it is you," Sam observed solemnly.

"No, I'm afraid," Jacob sighed. His daughter had already figured it out, so he decided that perhaps it was best if he explained. "The only way to stand any chance of defeating Morpheus is if we limit his movements to a known number of realities. The only way to do that is to find someone who can backtrack along the route Morpheus seems to have taken. We don't know how long it will take to find and convince the right world to in essence, stop Morpheus preemptively while we stop him in real-time here. Due to the risk of entropic cascade failure, the only way to ensure any chance of success is for that someone to be a person recently added to the timeline in Earth history, due to the decreased likelihood of that person being in every reality they... she... enters."

Sha're instantly knew that they were talking about her. She also knew about her husband's nightmares, and about the fact that dreams were not to be as easily dismissed as he would like them to be. She wanted to find out more, to agree to help, but she knew Daniel would protest first, even though he would realize they were right.

"You can't possibly expect me to send my wife, on her own or even at all, to do this..."

"Trust me, Dr. Jackson, if there was any other way around this, we would have thought of it by now," Jacob insisted.

Daniel opened his mouth to argue but Sha're took a turn to speak over him, gripping his hand harder.

"I wish to know how I may help Daniel's people."

"Mrs. Jackson, excuse me--" Jack interjected just as quickly. "General, Jacob, I'm really not comfortable with the idea of sending a civilian with no experience out to--"

"O'Neill—you believe I do not remember my time with the false gods. My knowledge of them will help me to avoid them. If this is the only way to help your people, I will do what I must."

"Sha're--" Daniel said, somewhere between pleading and insisting. He wanted her to make her own decisions, but sometimes he wasn't sure she understood the risk even now.

"Dr. Jackson, your wife is right. She may be our only hope, and she is certainly the only person among the Tau'ri able to try. We are quickly running out of time—Morpheus' ship approaches," Martouf explained calmly.


	3. Chapter 3

Sha're was actually relieved to no longer have an interview every day.

Seeing what Daniel did every day, seeing what he had learned to do to come through the stars to save her, was absolutely fascinating. The day on Earth was simply too short for her to learn and see everything that she wanted to.

Each day the cloud of the inevitable grew thicker and she became more and more aware of each of the gods falling to Morpheus. One by one, the gods—the Goa'uld System Lords, she tried to teach herself to think of them—were subjugated and defeated. The very thing that the Tau'ri had wanted now just seemed like a toppling down fence, like little blocks of polished stone—she thought O'Neill had called them dominoes—tipping one another over in a path toward this very blue planet.

\---

Poring over the most recent book Daniel had insisted she read to prepare her for the journey he was none too pleased with her taking, Sha're glanced up from where she was seated in front of the computer in his office. He didn't say anything at first, sighing and picking up a small figurine from a shelf, brushing his thumb carefully over the details—just a distraction, and Sha're knew it.

"You are not pleased with me," she observed, half a question but equally filled with conviction.

Daniel set down the trinket just as quickly, almost guiltily, and looked at her, sighing and shifting on his feet.

"No," he said, looking for the words as he leaned against the edge of the workstation. "No, it's not that. Sha're, I'm... proud... of you. I'm just afraid for you. I don't want you to do this on your own."

Sha're smiled and simply tried to reassure him with her own confidence, looking back down at her book and turning the page. "You think I have forgotten."

He stepped around and took a place behind her, rubbing her shoulders briefly, affectionately. "No, I just don't want you to have anything else to wish you could..."

She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch but then sighed and turned around, placing her knees in the chair and looking up at him. "Listen to me, Daniel. I will be safe. After all, I must find you again..."

"But whoever that is—he won't be me."

"No... but I always knew I could trust you. I will be safe. You could never hurt me."

"But can I keep you safe? I failed once, and I'd never forgive myself if--"

"Shh," Sha're insisted, raising herself higher onto her knees and pressing her fingertips against his lips before trailing her fingers up and tracing up his temple and down behind his ear—the way she had before his hair was short; the force of habit remained. "The past is no longer any concern, and I do not blame you for the actions of Apophis."

"It was my fault," Daniel insisted once again, kissing her fingertips and speaking against them in spite of her coaxing. "I let you go."

She smiled sadly and shook her head. There was no way Daniel could have known what would happen, and no way he could have stopped it. In fact, the only reason he was alive today was because he had not been there. She knew that Teal'c would likely have had no choice but to kill Daniel before he had found some hope in O'Neill from escape.

There was likely no convincing Daniel that it was not his fault, even after all this time, so she pulled back her fingers and curled them in slightly, stroking down his chin before leaning in and brushing her lips over his briefly.

"There is one way you could keep me safe," she said eventually, glancing down as she knew he would likely be very difficult to convince.

"What?" he asked, opening his eyes and brushing his own fingers down the side of her face.

"You could teach me to use the weapon you carry."

Daniel's eyes widened and immediately he shook his head in protest. "Sha're--"

"Husband. Never have I caused harm to anyone who did not threaten that which I hold dear. You must trust me to protect that... and myself."

Daniel searched her eyes, reluctantly realizing that she was right. It would be even more dangerous if she could only rely on the protection of whomever she found. He took one of her hands in his own, looking at how relatively small and soft they were, and there was something very wrong about thinking about placing in them something that would cause destruction. Nearly everyone he knew carried a weapon; _he_ carried a weapon. This was different. Yet, he knew he need only remember the first time he met her to know that she was right—she had led her people into rebellion. She was a soldier, far more than he ever would be or wanted to be.

"Right," Daniel relented, sighing and gripping Sha're's arms near her elbows gently, helping her up from the rolling chair. And the flash of excitement and intrigue that flashed in her eyes scared him.

\---

Gunmetal was cold and heavy in Sha're's hand—a sharp contrast to both Daniel's hands as they positioned hers and to the smooth, light, elegant feel of the gods' weapons. She gripped the gun's handle more tightly when she thought of their empty, sickening pageantry.

"Whoa, whoa--" Daniel said, excitedly at first but then more softly as she relaxed her hand. "Don't grip it too tightly; you won't be able to control it."

She carefully adjusted her grip the way he had shown her and glanced back over her shoulder, up at him, smiling apologetically.

Letting go of her hand, Daniel placed his own on her shoulders, guiding her to turn just a bit further.

"Line up to the target, keep your arm as still as possible, now aim..."

It almost felt natural to begin pulling the trigger as Sha're concentrated on the target at the end of the firing range. Something about the focused tunnel vision that developed made her feel like there was a pattering drumbeat in her head. The rest of the world seemed far away, and for a brief moment she felt equally as trapped in action as she had been when a prisoner in her body, as if for a moment all those thousand years' aggression were still somewhere, not part of, but implanted within, her memory. Somehow she knew she had perfect aim, and she would have pulled it had she not felt the warmth of her husband's hand, coming up to grip her wrist softly, cautiously, again.

"Sha're?" he asked, swallowing hard and looking around her shoulder, breathing shallowly. Everything about her was familiar and yet that flash of defiance in her eyes was far more intense than he remembered, and it was at least a little frightening.

She quickly repositioned her finger, just before firing was inevitable and she lowered the gun, exhaling and smiling at Daniel nervously.

"You need these first," he explained, as she put the gun down, eager to learn the next step. He rummaged in a drawer, producing two sets of very large orange headsets.

"What sound do these allow us to hear?"

"Not sound. Actually, they block sound out, so the firing won't hurt your ears."

"You cannot block out sound on your missions, husband," she replied, amused, as she took the headset like it might be dirty, looking at it skeptically before looking at him with raised eyebrows. She thought that perhaps he was being patronizing, protective again. Sighing, she put them on anyway, knowing he would not hear of having it any other way—and he was putting them on, too.

Daniel spoke more loudly as he got his on, crooked at first but then straightening them.

"No, but no point damaging your hearing until you have to." He looked at her for a long moment, brushing her hair behind her ear and then softly working its length into his hand, pulling it over one of her shoulders to get it out of her way. "I think you're... as ready as I can get you."

She took aim again and almost glared at the target. Daniel was still helping her keep her aim steady, her body centered, hands trailing down to her sides to remind her to breathe, moving back and forth with the natural, even rhythm of her body. And yet she hardly felt it at all. That same tunnel vision, that same fear of losing some part of herself to the violence, mingled with the bitter taste of determination in her mouth. This was the way the Tau'ri had provided her people a way to resist, a way to rebel, and now at long last she would know how to use it without fail, and none of them would hurt her, her people, not ever again.

She pulled the trigger, feeling the recoil down her arm with a start. Her eyes closed when the weapon discharged and she put it down quickly, not exhaling until the gun was again out of her hand.

She looked at the target—a series of concentric circles with a large dot in the middle which Sha're could not decipher. What was it supposed to represent? She supposed her husband would be happy to tell her later. The hole produced by the bullet was three circles out from the center—quite close.

Daniel realized much more quickly how significant the shot was. His hands gripped her waist where they had held her still and she arched back against the touch, gasping a little and trying not to laugh.

"What is it, my husband?" she asked, turning around to face him. "Did I do well?"

"You... very," he replied, trying to remain solemn about it, though a proud smile played at his lips, threatening to show through how displeased he was with the fact that Sha're had to learn this at all. "For a first try," he added with a smirk.

"Am I to believe you did better?"

"Certainly not," Daniel admitted, glancing away briefly but finding Sha're's deep brown eyes all too captivating to keep his own away for long. Fingers again found her hair, tangling in it and then just as gently working it free of knots. After all, he didn't want to undo the amount of work that he continually awed at each morning in their bathroom, watching how quickly Sha're adapted to technology now, even when its use was relatively trivial.

"Do you trust I will be safe now?"

"Well, you have to practice, but--"

Sha're wouldn't have interrupted, but she knew Daniel would keep talking eventually anyway. Glancing back down the firing range, she realized more fully that this was just another step closer to leaving. Daniel left almost every day, and every day he came back—yet, this was different.

"I promise," she assured him, pressing her lips against his, fingers cupping against his jaw. It was all she could do not to laugh when she felt just how quickly he relaxed beneath her touch, drawn into the kiss with something between nervous hesitation and passion that he never quite seemed to settle on.

And for a moment, the world was lost to them. No longer beneath a mountain on Earth, unfathomably far away from Nagada. For a moment, the gods had never taken her away and Daniel had never had to be her enemy. For a moment, she had never left home.

It was short-lived, however, as they both broke the kiss quickly and unceremoniously when the door opened. Sha're briefly touched Daniel's chest, almost patting it before she took a step back and he looked around for something to occupy himself, clearing his throat.

"Are we interrupting something?" Jack asked, and neither Daniel nor Sha're could tell from his tone whether it was simply a good natured greeting or a knowing tease.

"Not at all," Daniel said a bit too surely, his hand resting idly on the top of the drawer's handle.

Teal'c came in just behind Jack, walking over to where the small cache of alien weaponry that was used for practice was locked away after a brief not at Daniel and Sha're.

"Daniel has been instructing me in the use of your weapons."

"Daniel?" Jack asked skeptically, looking his friend in the eyes with a bit of surprise.

"She asked me to. Jack, we can't send her out there on her own without—And I _did_ talk to General Hammond about it."

"That's not why I was asking. Just... you...? What kind of weapon?"

"A... handgun?" Sha're asked, picking up the weapon and begin careful to keep it pointing down the firing range as she turned her body and held it up high enough to let Jack see. She _thought_ it was called a 'handgun.'

Jack smiled, something approaching pride in his eyes. She was a strong girl—determined. For a moment, however, they were tinged with sadness. She was a woman in her own right, but she was still so young to have been through so much and to now have to do this. He cleared his throat and forced himself not to think any deeper, saying the first thing he could think of, meeting Daniel's eyes.

"Nothing like a woman with a Baretta."

"Jack..." Daniel half-warned, but then he noticed something about Jack's widening grin as the other man shrugged and went to get a gun for himself to practice with. "Wait, did you just call me a woman?"

"For me to know," Jack replied in as close to a sing-song as he got.

Teal'c had retrieved both a Zat'nik'tel and a staff weapon, one at his hip, the other in his hand.

"With what other weapons do you intend to learn to fight?" he asked Sha're, trying to sound gentle, though it sounded basically like every other tone he had.

"The handgun is the weapon of Daniel's people," Sha're replied, not quite shrugging.

"Handgun?" Jack asked with a smirk. "P90's mine."

"_A_ weapon of his people," she corrected herself in a long-suffering tone.

"It may be wise to consider that you may come into contact with the Goa'uld," Teal'c suggested, looking from Sha're to Daniel briefly. "I believe you should consider learning to use their weaponry defensively."

Sha're shook her head at first, feeling some measure of disgust as she looked at the weapons that were so intimately intertwined with her memories of when Amaunet had controlled her.

Daniel looked back and forth between them, moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue, thoughtfully. He sighed and put his hand softly, supportively on Sha're's back, gently touching beneath her chin to quietly request that she look him in the eye.

"It's up to you, but... maybe he's right."

And for once, Daniel had won the argument. Sha're searched for a reason to argue but could find none. Her husband and the Jaffa were right.

"You will teach me?" she asked Daniel.

"I'm not exactly... maybe Teal'c would be better to," Daniel suggested. He really preferred to stay away from the Goa'uld weapons, too, and so had less experience with them than with his own gun.

"It would be my honor to teach you," Teal'c said honestly, inclining his head downward in a very formal show of respect. If not for him, he thought, Sha're would never have become involved in all of the suffering he had seen her go through, had chosen her for, even.

"Thank you, Teal'c," she said, equally formal but with a weak smile as she met his eyes. She had long since forgiven him for his actions. In another world, she had forgiven him for the death she had known was deserved for Amaunet's actions. Somewhere in a dream.

Moments later, she stood in front of him, her hands tentatively wrapping around the staff weapon. A Zat'nik'tel was familiar to her. Amaunet had known how to use one. However, the staff weapon was not so slender and delicate a weapon. Amaunet's pride would not have allowed her to use one in a body considered so prized and beautiful a possession.

Daniel stood by, watching nervously as Sha're's hesitant grip became more firm, more confident. The staff went from foreign, strange, repulsive object to somehow joined with her hands.

Teal'c taught her to grip it first, showing her how to use her own, smaller body as an advantage to keep a weapon that would otherwise be awkward close to her body. The staff was more than just its firing tip—it would be a way for her to gain leverage against enemies who would undoubtedly otherwise overpower her small human frame.

If it had not been for the memory of the red, slick cauterized wounds he had seen come from the staff weapons, Daniel would have believed the tool had become a gymnast's baton as moments passed to an hour and he watched, poised to try to help Sha're in any way he could.

Instead, he found that she came to this as fluidly has he had come to languages.

Teal'c managed to knock the staff from her hands, but she easily moved her feet, picked it up again.

Each time, her center of gravity changed, flowed down like visible waves of experience building, poising in her fingertips.

She and Teal'c worked mostly in silence which eventually so punctuated the air that even Jack put his weapon down and joined Daniel by the wall, not even finding a snide remark to make. A lot was riding on Sha're's shoulders, and the fact that she seemed to understand weaponry far better than her husband ever had, given the chance, actually managed to make him feel less cynical about their chances for the moment.

Finally, as Sha're kept the staff positioned correctly in her hands in spite of Teal'c's efforts to break her form, he stepped back and again nodded respectfully to her. She was not a master of the skill, but she was not a Jaffa and such skill was not her purpose. She had done very well for a human with no previous experience.

"You have done well," he stated after a polite pause and careful consideration of his words. "Now, you may take aim and fire as I have shown you."

Another spark of nervousness lit in Daniel's chest as he watched her raise the weapon higher, looking down its length. Again, she stopped being what remained of the innocent girl he had known. She was something else, something drawn from the ancient wall coverings he had studied for years before looking at the sky for them. The form of goddess incarnate she had been, and it sent a strange, almost sickening tingle of electricity down his spine to remember the goddess-demon's slinking movement, such a mockery of his wife's innate grace.

Still, she was human.

Authority wielded with stolen naquadah and fear was not Sha're's power. Blood—iron and stardust—flowed through her with the naturally quickening pace of her heartbeat and as she steadied herself to fire.

The weapon clicked, snapped into place, and as the charge burnt into the target, disrupting the central three rings with the first try, in the same breath, a spark of Daniel's fear relieved.


	4. Chapter 4

Daniel hadn't slept so soundly sense he had been back on Abydos, mattress and air conditioning notwithstanding. Knowing that his wife was safe and sound next to him was more than enough to lull him into something resembling a childlike slumber. He had become spoiled to the peace of mind, so when the morning came that she was gone, save for the splinter of light that spilled into the hallway from the bathroom, he stared at the ceiling, concentrating on the sounds of the hairdryer. Anything to remind him that the empty, cool void beside him hadn't only been filled by his imagination for all this time.

That morning, the sun had not yet begun to rise in the Colorado sky. The chirping of the birds that gradually ushered out the night came from the window sill where Sha're had insisted they hang a bird feeder, fascinated by the free things that were anything but the Horus guard.

Groggily, Daniel forced himself out of bed, absently making it up. He didn't remember the alarm being set so early or it going off. Sha're must have awakened without it, so he reached over and turned it off.

He picked up the folded uniform from the top of the dresser and changed from his pajama pants into the familiar dull green clothing. The idea of going his separate ways with Sha're at work today was different, more uncomfortable than it had ever been before. He tried to keep his promise to her, not to think about it, not to worry, but she had never been in a car for that long before. She had never been out of Colorado. This morning, however, she was on her way to Washington, on her way to the Pentagon, in the company of one Major Davis. Then she would be shown to another storage facility—Daniel had a fair suspicion as to where the mirror had been moved, but that was more cloak-and-dagger government stuff that made him really wonder why he had _ever_ agreed to work for the military.

He wandered into the kitchen and then had another disconnected thought in the form of an answer to his previous question. Coffee. Well, food, too. And coffee.

He turned on the light and went about changing the filter of his beloved little machine and turned it on. The more he went on with things normally, the less likely he was to start trying to convince Sha're that she shouldn't leave. He knew that there was more at stake.

"Good morning, husband," Sha're said as she approached, startling him. He straightened himself from simply staring expectantly at the liquid he had a rather dependent relationship with. His wife was more interesting to look at, though little else was until he had his coffee.

"'Morning." Then his eyes widened a bit and he adjusted his glasses a little. He had grown accustomed to Sha're wearing a uniform similar to his own, but today her hair was tied in a ponytail, all of it pulled away from her face. "Different," he remarked, affectionately touching the ponytail in question as Sha're turned to the refrigerator to retrieve a large bottle full of a pink-red liquid that she had found to be one of her favorite things out of Daniel's box of cool air. She still shivered every time she opened the door.

Daniel smiled, glancing over at the three other empty grapefruit juice bottles. The agricultural structure on Abydos had not allowed for the cultivation of much fruit, so fruit juice had been just like candy to Sha're. Or like coffee to him, he supposed.

Early morning silence, the fresh breeze brushing a chill over the driveway. It was eerie to Daniel, who had become suspicious of any moment that seemed too perfect, too suspended, with Sha're. Moments like that, he half expected her to be some kind of dream or delusion. He shook his head to clear it and got into the car, starting it and turning off the radio as it finally broke the strange spell.

He waited for a moment as Sha're, briefly, thankfully unaware of his uneasiness, fastened her seatbelt and he backed away from the house, driving away slowly. Tonight he would return without her. Again.

\---

The black three-car motorcade was poised in the tunnel heading out of Cheyenne mountain, and Daniel looked up at the sky—still tinged with night, the stars still visible—hating that Sha're had to be a tool to their supposed only hope at salvation. Morpheus, he called himself. He knew it didn't make any sense, but this cover-by-night thing didn't make him feel any more comfortable with their new enemy. He had never held any superstition about the Goa'uld, but he did believe they took upon their guises for a reason, and dealing in the night seemed to be a bit too poetic for the military.

Daniel approached Janet, who was simply giving her patient a quick once-over before her long journey, and cleared his throat.

"Can I help you?" she teased gently as she pulled her hands back from feeling Sha're's neck.

"Daniel is still afraid for me, I think."

"I can't say I blame him, but you look right as rain to me." Janet put the buds of her stethoscope into her ears, doing a second check of Sha're's blood pressure before she patted her arm and let the stethoscope fall back down around her neck with a confident finality. "You'll be just fine. Just don't give me any more work wherever you end up, got it?" she asked, smiling warmly as she saw that Sha're was finally beginning to understand when she was trying to make her do the same.

Turning her attention to Daniel, Janet just smiled and patted his arm briefly as she started to head back into the interior of the Mountain.

"Don't fuss over her. She's going to be fine, Daniel," she insisted. "See you inside."

He nodded quickly but was almost immediately following Sha're, trying to help her as she checked the supplies that were laid about her feet on the ground.

"Are you sure about this?"

Sha're carefully ran her skilled fingers over each zipper and flap on the backpack, making sure everything was closed and secure before she turned to face Daniel, smiling warmly.

"Husband," she purred softly, intimately, as she touched the flap of the over-sized green pocket on the chest of his shirt—one that matched her own. "You know that I must."

"I know," Daniel admitted, glancing down at her small hand as she fidgeted with the fabric. Then he licked his lips and shyly looked up and away. "I just wish I could go with you," he admitted, managing to catch her eyes again.

"Samantha Carter has told us all that this is not possible. I must go through to the other worlds alone, and you are needed here."

"I know," he replied quickly with a tight, forced smile. "Fine, I just wish _someone_ was going with you."

"Your government's Major Davis will be accompanying. He seems to be a friend to Sam."

"Friend? Maybe. Or maybe the least poisonous in a pit of vipers."

"I will be all right. All I need do is speak when I have found a world that suffers an equal fear of the false god Morpheus," she insisted, shrugging slightly at her husband's worry.

"We hope," he replied cynically with a grimace.

"There is no other way. We must stop... him," she said, rolling over the last word with some embarrassment. She still couldn't say the names of the gods very flippantly without some kind of humility—no, maybe it was dread.

"Morpheus," Daniel supplied automatically from the textbook in his mind, unflinching and shameless in the face of these specters that had ruled Sha're's existence—before she had known him and during her time as Amaunet's host.

"Yes," she continued, clearing her throat. "And I am the only one who can try."

"Because we know you're probably dead where you're going," he replied, feeling the tightening in his veins, his throat, as he thought about how angry and helpless the very thought made him feel.

She simply gave him a scolding look. Enough was enough—Daniel was just being self-indulgent now.

He relaxed his shoulders a bit with a sigh, trying his best to let her have her way, to have faith in her.

"I just don't want to lose you...again."

Sha're paused for a moment before she could answer. What could she say? He knew what it was like—and somewhere she did, too. So she said the only thing that she felt was true.

"You never did, husband."

"But _I_ will..."

Daniel stepped back, feeling the need to catch his breath again. Flickers, thoughts, memories—things he knew didn't belong in his mind. Not here.

"I must," Sha're said again, frowning softly as she stepped toward him.

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose a bit, massaging beneath the nose pads of his glasses. He was about to reply when the sound of a single clap of hands disrupted his focus. His eyes snapped open as Sha're turned to face the sound as well.

"Jack," Daniel said, startled.

"Hey kids!" Jack replied, smiling warmly at Sha're as she tried not to laugh at her husband's very erratic friend.

"O'Neill," she said politely, pursing her lips to hold back the laughter.

"You're here this early?" Daniel asked.

"Party's downstairs," he remarked evenly. "What are you two wallflowers doing up here?"

"Jack-" Daniel started again, a bit irritably. For a moment he wanted to say goodbye to his wife in private—but then he realized that he couldn't do that again. Not now. So he trailed off even before Jack had an opportunity to interrupt him.

Sha're looked a little confused. She cocked her head at Jack and walked toward him—childlike curiosity overtook her on a moment to moment basis, something that reminded Jack of the way Daniel had been four years ago. However, he had to give Sha're credit for not being anywhere near as clumsy or accident prone.

"Party, O'Neill?" she asked, smiling a little as she prepared to be embarrassed by her lack of understanding again. Still, it didn't matter. She wanted to learn all about her husband's strange, strange home. He had told her that her ancestors had lived here once, too.

"'Course, didn't they tell you? All night." he teased.

Sha're knew that he was toying with her and glanced back at Daniel.

"It's an... expression." Daniel shrugged, smiling weakly. "Of sorts."

"So are you ready to go?" Jack asked her more seriously, catching her eyes again, standing up a bit straighter as he took on the role of a focused commanding officer.

"I think I am," she replied confidently, only briefly biting her lower lip as she looked back at Daniel's now much darker blue eyes. There was nothing more she could do to make him any more content with this, so she turned to follow Jack.

Jack began to help her load the back of the central car in the motorcade and Daniel realized that he should have been doing the same, so he moved to begin helping. The last of the supplies loaded, Daniel turned with a sigh and closed the door.

A few feet away Jack was standing in front of Sha're and Daniel watched, not hearing anything they were saying—the world seemed a bit too underwater for that for a moment—as Jack made sure for the third time that she had everything she needed.

When the world came back into focus again, Daniel didn't wait to register if he was interrupting anything. Instead, his words ran atop his friend's, lips drying as they passed through them.

"Please, be careful..." he implored, it taking a moment before he could look at Sha're again—there was always something in him that feared it might be the last time now.

"You kidding? She'll be running the show, wherever she ends up through the mirror-thingy." Jack said with a grin, looking at her reassuringly.

Daniel tried to be content with that—Jack was confident in her ability to defend herself, and it was the closest to good faith he was going to get. It still didn't change the fact that Sha're would be entirely on her own on the other side of the "mirror thingy," the looking glass—the thought made him sick and terrified.

Men in dress uniform came out into the open air, walking toward the mouth of the tunnel where they stood. Finished with their confab with the General, then.

"Come on," Jack continued, fondly patting Sha're's shoulder once. "You can do it. Go knock 'em dead."

Suddenly Sha're looked much more unsettled and for the first time a little frightened.

Daniel's eyes widened, too—Jack should know after years of dealing with Teal'c that euphemisms didn't work very well with people not quite as familiar with American... high culture... as Jack seemed to be.

"Who?" Sha're asked. "These men are your people..."

"Not _my_ people," Jack insisted. "Not yours either if you're smart."

"It's an expression," Daniel sighed—it was becoming an automatic response, and for a brief moment something in that made him smile, in spite of—maybe because of—Jack's open distaste.

Jack's expression softened and he squeezed Sha're's shoulder reassuringly.

"I don't mean it. Trust me, if anyone's gonna kill any of those NID guys or their flunkies, it's gonna be me." Another glare from Daniel. "...not that any of them are going to be," he added unenthusiastically.

Sha're was visibly relieved. She did not want to kill anyone. Never again.

"That said, you do need to remember to take care of yourself. You remember what we talked about," Jack said more gravely as he gestured toward the single, small gun that he and Daniel had insisted Sha're carry on her person.

"Of course," she said. "Daniel?"

"Yes?" he asked, feeling himself flush as she stepped toward him, small, warm body close to his as she tiptoed up and kissed him without further explanation. Moments of stolen breath that he had missed—remembered but forgotten entirely in her absence. He felt like a naïve child every time she kissed him—perhaps because that was the way she kissed him, like every time was first and last, completely without hesitation or thought of embarrassment.

No, he would be plenty embarrassed for the both of them.

When she pulled back, he spared a moment to brush his nose alongside hers playfully, hoping his glowing cheeks would dull before he let her go.

"I won't be long," she said.

Daniel almost winced but managed to hide it. That had been the last thing he had said to her the last time they had parted ways.

"Don't be."

Sha're stepped back before he could bring himself to let her go.

It was then that he felt Jack's eyes, saw his amused smirk out of the corner of his eye.

At first, Daniel just shrugged a little, as if trying to shrug off Jack's knowing look.

Sha're noted the exchange but rolled her eyes and stepped away from both of them, standing up straight to meet these men as politely as she knew how.

"You must be Mrs. Jackson," one of the men, 'Davis' his uniform confirmed, said, stepping out and offering to shake her hand. She did, reluctantly, deciding immediately that she saw why Samantha Carter seemed to trust this man a bit more than the others.

Daniel and Jack had no choice but to take their leave moments later as the awkward greetings were past.

A few more safety protocols and checklists, and the trio of black cars was off, out of the compound and driving into sunrise.


	5. Chapter 5

_Present Day_

Weeks had gone by, and though he wouldn't say it, Jack was still worried about Daniel. Nothing was really wrong with him, but since the night he had shown up on his doorstep, Daniel hadn't so much as mentioned the fact that he had seen his dead wife at the laundromat. Jack didn't claim to know anything about psychology, but he didn't think that could be healthy.

He didn't mean to be distracted when he and Carter walked by Daniel's office and he wasn't in it. He knew Daniel hadn't left yet—they'd hardly been out of their most recent debriefing for an hour.

"Sir?" Sam asked, noticing that he looked a little distracted, rather than glazed over at the most recent explanation that he had asked her for and then proceeded to block out.

"No, sorry," he replied, shaking his head a little. "Scanners or something."

"...yes, sir," she replied, a little disappointed but used to it. "Well, I was saying that the scans indicate that—Sir, is something wrong?"

"Wrong? No. It's just... have you seen Daniel?" he asked eventually as they rounded the corner into the cafeteria where they had been heading.

"Daniel? No, sir. Why, is something... wrong with Daniel?" she asked, deciding to refine her question. The Colonel was acting very strangely. Sure, he cared about his team, but it wasn't normal for him to take such a seemingly grave interest in Daniel's whereabouts. She had a sneaking suspicion that Jack was even more bored by Daniel's particular breed of lectures than hers.

"No, nothing. I was just wondering," Jack replied, actually seeming to shake his worry for the moment and finally getting around to looking Carter in the eye as he retrieved a tray, bracing himself for the glazing over that he would receive as he tried to pay attention to the science lesson, at least for a moment longer. "So what does that mean?"

"It means that the radiation from the object isn't like anything we've seen before. It's almost like a kind of negative radiation—the object doesn't actually become invisible, it just becomes... unnoticeable. If we could figure out how it works and determine that it's not dangerous, it could be an amazing contribution to Special Ops. equipment and for UAVs that we have to send to Goa'uld controlled worlds."

"Oh," Jack said with substantially more enthusiasm. Once she broke it down, it did sound potentially cool. "Someone's birthday today?" he asked as he moved down to the end of the cafeteria line, his enthusiasm building all the time.

"No, sir, not that I'm aware. Why?" Sam asked, looking at the same desert section that he was, though her own eyes were set upon some jello on the top level.

"No reason. Just... they made cake today," he remarked. "I like cake."

\---

 

When Jack did catch up with Daniel again in the locker room, Daniel seemed entirely too intent on cleaning his glasses, lost in thought.

"How've you been?" he asked.

Daniel looked up with a bit of a start. He'd noticed Jack standing there, rummaging through his locker, but it was almost like that was so independent of his thoughts that it was a surprise when Jack spoke.

"What do you mean?"

"It's been a while."

"Oh. I was just going over some notes."

"You weren't in your office."

"You were looking?" Daniel asked, looking up and a bit more himself when he put his classes back on.

"Was in the neighborhood." Jack shrugged. "So. Weekend off. What are you gonna do?"

"Well, I still have the translations from--"

"Oh, Daniel, stop it," Jack interjected, not even noting when he was met with Daniel's disgruntlement at having been interrupted. "That's what you do all week."

"I won't have to do it while running and firing weapons," he supplied. It was a break.

"Go fishing with me," he suggested casually, once again fiddling with something in his locker before closing it again.

"Me, fishing?"

"What is it with you people? Fishing is great."

"I'm not sure I see the appeal..."

"Fine," Jack said, brushing aside the urge to argue the merits of his favorite hobby. He was worried about Daniel, and two days off wasn't long to go fishing anyway. "How about a compromise. A movie?"

"About fishing?"

"No... not necessarily."

"Not much of a compromise, but I'll take it," Daniel sighed, actually smiling in spite of himself. Not being alone might actually be a good idea.

\---

 

On the way to his house, Jack stopped at the gas station to pick up some beer and movie food. Popcorn, chips, and other things that were indigestion and arteries' collective nightmare. He was in very good shape for his age—otherwise, he wouldn't be alive—so he didn't really spend much time feeling guilty. Daniel knew where the spare key was anyway.

Walking back to his truck, Jack didn't really take note of the extra person standing at the gas pump. After all, there was a car parked next to the one behind his.

"Ma'am," he acknowledged, nodding respectfully the way his military core insisted that he must. It wasn't until a second later that he recognized her and realized the impossible. Meeting the woman's brown eyes again, he was a little glad when she began to speak because he couldn't begin to.

"O'Neill," she said at the first flicker of recognition in his eyes.

Jack spent a moment thinking about how stupid he was for not noticing the Air Force issue clothing to begin with, anything to think about except the dead woman standing in front of him. He had seen dead people before, and that particular movie had been completely lost on him—he didn't want to ever see dead people for any reason.

"Sha're?" he asked, just because her name was the first and easiest thing that came to mind that wouldn't have been rude or drawn quite a bit of attention to them.

"O'Neill," she repeated. "Little time remains. I'm glad I was able to find you. Do you know where Daniel is?"

Hearing Sha're speak even this normally was a little jarring to Jack. He hadn't been around her much, but when he had seen them together on Abydos, she and Daniel seemed to speak the native language there to one another mostly. This Sha're didn't look anything like an Abydonian any more, and her English seemed to be at least as good as his, if a little bit Teal'c-y.

"Probably at my house by now," Jack replied in a very conversational tone. There was no reason to get excited. "Why?" Maybe "deceptively calm" was more accurate.

"We must find him at once."

Jack hesitated for a moment as Sha're looked at him earnestly, even commandingly. He had no idea what was going on, but he had never been one for analysis. One more moment's actual thought, then he got out his key and unlocked the passenger's side door and opened it for her.

"Oh, what the hell? Come on, I'm going to wake up soon anyway."

\---

 

Daniel had let himself in and was already sitting on the couch, bare feet curled up beneath him as he read. He looked forward to the company, but he dreaded to see what film he'd be expected to endure in the name of a normal Friday night. When he heard the key turn and the door open, he folded the book gently over his finger and waited, almost counting back in his head—ten seconds or less and Jack would have said something sarcastic about Daniel being there first.

Right on cue.

"Honey—Daniel, I'm home," Jack called, though the tone wasn't quite as full as Jack seemed to pride himself on.

Daniel got up, walking around the corner, ready to meet Jack at the door and help with whatever Jack had stopped to get this time.

"...and look what the cat—well, the me, Jack, being the cat—dragged in," Jack continued brightly, still completely convinced of the solution that this had to be some kind of weird dream. He was actually a little surprised that Sha're hadn't just gone away in a puff of smoke, but no, here she stood just in front of him in his house.

All the color drained out of Daniel's face for a moment as his eyes focused and he stumbled for words or even so much as breath.

"Sh-Sha're?" Daniel asked. One more time. She had promised. He had wanted to believe her, but that had been weeks ago... And she looked so different—not just something so simple as a ponytail, but her eyes told a story that he couldn't begin to guess at.

"And this is where we wake up," Jack interjected, hoping that that was what would happen. It wasn't that he didn't want Daniel to see his wife again, but this was just strange. Why would he dream about Daniel seeing his wife again?

"I assure you this is not of the world of dreams," Sha're said, seeming to take the statement very seriously.

"Who—What are you, then?" Jack asked.

"O'Neill, please, I have very little time. Let me assure you, again, that this is real--"

"But red pill, blue pill?"

"Jack, listen to her..." Daniel warned.

Sha're caught his eyes, and he was again taken aback by how good it felt and how it twisted the ache in his heart again. She would just be gone again in a few minutes—but at least this time Jack had seen it. He could talk to Jack.

"I must know, am I alive here?"

Daniel couldn't help stumbling over the question, feeling more air drawn from his lungs without any violence or other cause.

"No..." Jack replied, more solemnly, slowly becoming convinced that something else was probably going on. "...no. You died. Months ago, Teal'c had to kill Amaunet to save Daniel's life. As I'm sure you know, you were the host."

Much to Jack and Daniel's surprise, she actually looked relieved. After the visible exhale, she slipped past the two men and seemed to know where she was going when she entered the living room, knowing exactly where the step down was without any visible thought to navigation. It was as if she had been there before, numerous times.

She took a seat on the chair across from the sofa, looking on and waiting for Jack and Daniel to sit down.

"...then we have much to talk about," she finally said, meeting them with her eyes. She launched into the explanation quickly, speaking as clearly and carefully as she knew how. She explained how her life had been saved when Teal'c had been forced to discharge his weapon, quickly moving past Daniel's look of shock because she had to. She explained her weapons training and how long it had been, at least for her, she said, since she had left in Washington, D.C.

Eventually, as she explained the several universes she had already been to and had had to leave quickly, either because it was too late or because she had survived in the others, she produced two artifacts from her pocket. They were small and had a smooth crystal in the center, much like the Goa'uld ribbon device. The crystal was encapsulated in something that looked something between mechanic and organic, and the crystal itself was a streaky, dark and translucent graphite shade with impure streaks through it.

"The Tok'ra in one universe were able to create these crystals, capable of storing the information of each universe on a different pathway, creating relationships between themselves as they go. The information itself works like a map," she explained, obviously trying to remember. "The crystals take advantage of the damage Morpheus has already done to the fortification of the realities, allowing those who use the crystals to travel between universes..."

"Your wife's a scientist now, too?" Jack asked, weary from the long explanation, though he had tried to listen up to this point.

"How should I know?" Daniel asked, feeling a wave of dread building up. "Is this... was it you who told me you would be back again?"

"Yes. At least one more time..." she replied. "That means you are the one. Both of you, in truth."

"What do you need us to do?"

"I need you to travel with me. You are the only ones who can, and you are the only ones I can trust."

"Oh, for cryin' out loud..."

"If there were another way, I would have discovered it by now."

"How exactly do you expect us to go with you? How did you get here at all?" Daniel asked, finding himself enticed by the idea of being able to go with Sha're anywhere.

"The devices I have given you will allow us to travel from here. We may only take what we can carry—they are not as strong as the mirrors."

Jack watched Daniel, watched as the other man's eyes focused and could see the wheels in Daniel's head turning.

"Daniel," he said evenly, cautiously. "We can't do this."

"Jack--"

"We can't possibly do this."

"O'Neill," Sha're interjected again in that same commanding tone of voice. "If you do not assist me in this quest to stop the Goa'uld Morpheus, everything we know is going to fade away."

"What does that even mean? How the hell are we going to be able to get back to defend our own world? And don't tell me some cereal box toy is going to do it."

"If you do not come with me, every world is in danger. It will not matter where you are, there will be nothing you can do to stop Morpheus and the endless sleep."

"'Endless sleep'? Oh, come on..."

"Jack," Daniel interjected again, having made up his own mind long ago, but Sha're seemed to think she needed both of them, and he had nothing to go on but his gut, the twisting in his heart, and her world. "What choice do we have?"

"Daniel! ...I'm sorry, but 'what choice'? We stop listening to the dead lady and... I don't know, I finally wake up from this... stupid... dream," he replied, pinching himself with emphasis on the last three words.

Daniel swallowed the hurt that came from hearing Jack call her dead, even though he knew it was true. And yet as he reached out to touch her shoulder reassuringly, it was there as sure as he was.

"Jack, how is this any different from stepping through the Stargate for the first time? You did that."

"I had orders to do that and... nothing to lose..." he replied, trailing off toward the end as he tried to decide if he had anything to lose now.

"Jack, please..."

Jack wasn't even listening to Daniel any more, or to the woman that, however much he sympathized, he knew was dead. Still, in spite of his willfully deaf ears, he looked around the room and at Daniel's eyes, then at Sha're's. They seemed real, even if the situation was ridiculous.

Then, he decided that if it were him, and the person standing in front of them had been his son, he would have followed Charlie anywhere, and he couldn't let Daniel do something so crazy on his own.

"Fine. If I'm in a coma, and I wake up from this alive, I'm going to kill you."

"O'Neill," Sha're interjected again, that same commanding tone in her voice. Jack couldn't help but think back about how she had always been a leader, a soldier. Something about that was a bit strange—he hadn't really thought of it before. "You must not confuse your dreams for waking. The lives of many rest on your mind and your knowledge of reality."

"Mine?" he asked doubtfully, but spared the further quip when he realized that he was probably going to do it anyway. He simply outstretched his hand and gestured for Sha're to give him one of the cereal box things. Wrapping his hand around it, he felt it give off a slight charge that almost made him drop it, but he kept hold of it, looking at his hand curiously.

"Do not lose them," Sha're insisted once more. "They are our only way home."

"Ruby slippers?" Jack asked.

Sha're again looked a bit disgruntled, though less confused than she would have been. She had seen this Wizard of Oz film now, and she did not understand why the Colonel insisted on bringing it up at the most inappropriate times.

"Ruby slippers," Daniel agreed, avoiding any further waste of time.


	6. Chapter 6

_Several Universes Later_

Jack sat up and rubbed his temples, groaning in the back of his throat as he tried to clear his vision. Opening his eyes, he realized that they were still in the SGC's supply closet. The third—or was it fourth? At least this one didn't seem to be heavily guarded or overrun by any hostile forces. He really doubted that Sha're actually knew how those ring things worked, or if they worked at all. He had had it with this hit and miss tiptoeing stuff.

As soon as he could haul himself to his feet, he first glanced around to see that Sha're and Daniel were there and all right. Seeing both of them working their way to their feet, Jack decided not to wait for the both of them to decide that they needed to approach this gradually. No one in the SGC had decided to shoot them yet, and Jack was willing to take the chance at this point to just get something done.

Every single place they had gone had turned out to be a bust, either because they got sick shortly after arriving because of their doubles or because it was already too late.

"Jack, where are you going?" Daniel hissed, following as soon as Sha're was on her feet.

"We know our people, Daniel. They're not going to shoot us on sight, and I've had it with this hanging back and waiting."

"Daniel, you must stop him. If he--"

"Like I could," Daniel muttered over Sha're's voice, exasperated.

She shrugged, keeping to Daniel's side and looking around vigilantly, just waiting to see how quickly and how badly wandering around in the depths of the SGC without clearance could go wrong.

As if on cue, five armed guards met them at the next juncture of hallway and Jack reflexively put his hands in the air, spreading his arms slightly so they almost appeared bent at a ninety degree angle, as if this would somehow protect Daniel and Sha're when they came up behind him.

Behind the throng of guards, some of their faces familiar, some of them not, footsteps approached quickly.

"Stand down," ordered a familiar voice.

Jack frowned and felt his fingers curl in against his palms, hands preparing to lower of their own accord. Suddenly, he didn't feel any need to be submissive or remotely afraid—only once again very confused. The weapons lowered, the guards parted, and on the other side stood a very living, very obviously in charge Charles Kawalsky.

"Kawalsky?" Jack asked, confirming once again that he wasn't just seeing things—Sha're had told them to be on guard about reality, and seeing dead people put him a bit on the suspicious side, in spite of having spent the better part of a few weeks with one them.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Kawalsky returned, dubious, hand going toward the weapon at his hip, if reluctantly.

Daniel pushed past Jack's still-raised arm and Sha're took the initiative to make the same move, refusing to be the one to hide while they tried to be heroes for her—it just wasn't in her nature.

She squinted a bit, trying not to stare but trying to figure out how she knew the man standing in front of her. She knew she had seen him before, but it felt like it had been lifetimes since.

Kawalsky's eyes focused on Sha're first, though his look of doubt suddenly turned to one of someone who had just seen a ghost.

"Kawalsky," Daniel repeated, in the tone that meant he was thinking about something.

"Yes," the man in question replied with annoyance. "Major Charles Kawalsky. Now, what is going on here? You're dead," he said, still looking at Sha're and unable to move his eyes away from her until he finally moved them back to Jack.

"Yeah, I know. Thought she was, too," Jack replied with an uncomfortable, slightly sarcastic chuckle.

Captain Samantha Carter followed a few minutes behind Kawalsky, also at a jog from wherever she had been.

"Major," she said, eyes immediately focusing on Kawalsky, "What's going on? On the cameras, I thought I saw--"

Kawalsky pointed to the three intruders and Jack gave a quick half-wave, half-salute.

"Jack, yes, it's me," Jack confirmed, deciding that in all the merriment he might as well introduced the rest of his gang. He finally lowered his arms completely, fairly certain that no one was going to shoot anyone now. He pointed briefly as the feeling came back into his arms at his two companions. "Daniel. Sha're."

"Colonel," Sam repeated, a little confused about why he would call himself that to them, apparently.

"Oh, you call me that here. Makes things simpler. When you call me Jack it usually means things are really complicated," Jack mumbled enigmatically.

So much for not slowing things down, Daniel thought. This was bordering on ridiculous and was taking much longer than any other more-planned entrance they had made in their other misadventures. He decided to step forward, glancing at Sha're and hoping for a little bit of telepathy, hoping maybe she'd help him with the details.

"Hi, I'm Daniel Jackson, like he said," he explained, stepping forward slowly. "I was hoping that maybe I could clear a few things up. I know this all must be very confusing, but... You seem to know Jack. Do either of you know me?"

"Yes, of course," Sam replied.

"No," Kawalsky grunted in the same breath.

The two of them exchanged very confused looks.

Daniel looked back to Sha're, wondering if there was any immediate explanation for this but both his companions simply shrugged.

"You know him?" Kawalsky asked, turning to Sam in an equally desperate manner.

"It was really only a matter of time before this sort of thing started happening," she replied, touching her temple as if she suddenly had a headache, though otherwise she remained completely alert.

"What?" Jack asked, automatically pursuing more information whenever Carter said things like that.

"Well, sir--"

Then Kawalsky tapped Sam on the shoulder and shook his head curtly.

"We don't have any way of knowing if that's our Jack."

"At this point, we don't have much of a choice," Sam replied. "We've got to assume that all of this is being caused by Morpheus's mirror. We don't have time for any other assumptions or further investigation."

"So is anyone going to tell us what's going on?" Jack asked again.

"Come with us," Kawalsky replied gruffly, not happy with what Captain Carter had to say, but knowing that she knew more about this kind of thing than he ever would.

~~~

 

After quite possibly the most anticlimactic briefing any of them had ever experienced, Sam was free to stand before them and explain what she believed was going on—quickly and in layman's terms for Jack's sake, by Hammond's direct order.

This version of Hammond apparently had seen everything.

"Morpheus has succeeded in toppling and subjugating all of the System Lords, and he's been at a stand-off with the Asgard and Tok'ra on the edge of our solar system for a little over a week now. He could have easily broken through, if not for some kind of temporal technology that the Asgard have been able to use to counter Morpheus's own technology, which isn't something that I've been able to get hold of to reverse engineer anything that would actually counter it from our end. Colonel, I think it's safe to assume that you're not yourself—at least that you're not the Colonel we know. You—he... left with Teal'c on one of the Tok'ra ships and... went missing in action a few days ago..." she said, obviously more than a little uncomfortable saying it.

Daniel cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, uncomfortable with the fact that he was supposed to feel relieved at the news that Jack was dead. Kawalsky had also said that Sha're was dead here. And this was good news for them...

"...it's not really surprising that other universes have been developing technology to fight Morpheus's advance on them, but all of it seems to be converging here, which would explain why I remember Daniel but Kawalsky doesn't. Also explains why the three of you are alive, while two of you shouldn't be and... well, sir, like I said, we really don't know..."

"I know you guys are sorry I'm dead. I would be, too. But it sounds like we've got bigger fish to fry, Captain," Jack said gruffly, trying not to feel as uncomfortable as this situation merited, even for him.

"Morpheus's power must converge on all of us in order to destroy all of us," Sha're interjected.

"What?" Kawalsky asked, the least accustomed to her way of speaking.

"...he must destroy all of us if he wishes to destroy the Earth's defenses."

Still not understanding, Kawalsky shook his head.

"Whatever. We're the ones who're gonna do the destroying."

"How exactly do you propose to do that? If he has every single version of the SGC under his control and has all of us backed into a corner..." Daniel countered, dubious about all of the macho verbal grandstanding in the face of these kinds of odds when their enemy wasn't even actually present to hear it.

"Prometheus," Sam explained. "It's something like Earth's flagship—I don't know how, but some of us seemed to know how to build it, even though others didn't, and it honestly doesn't make sense that we were able to do it since we shouldn't have that kind of technology yet. However, we just have to call it dumb luck and hope that it's a side effect of Morpheus's technology that he wasn't expecting. From all we know of the way he used some universe's mirror to build it, it's something like a Frankenstein monster anyway."

"It was our mirror," Daniel supplied, gesturing to himself and Jack. "At least, that's what Sha're thinks."

"Far as I'm concerned, he can keep it," Jack said, steepling his fingers, closing his eyes in exasperation, and touching between his eyebrows with a heavy sigh.

"It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid, sir."

"So again I ask, what do we do?" Daniel pursued.

"We're going to space," Kawalsky said, grinning with a light in his eyes that meant that this man, this Kawalsky, had had a life that the one Daniel had known had never had opportunity to have. Life cut short.

Well, at least this series of unfortunate circumstances wasn't all bad.

Didn't have to be.

Daniel felt his eyes wandering over to Sha're, looking at her familiar form and wondering at the wall that she seemed to erect between them. He didn't quite understand it, though he thought that he was likely being willfully ignorant of whatever reason that this Sha're did not seem to consider herself his wife, in spite of how many times she called him "husband". He shook his head and cleared his throat as all of them stood up from the table.

"Prometheus," he muttered under his breath, refocusing his mind on the topic at hand, and reminding himself that sometimes it was possible to get too close.


	7. Chapter 7

_Air Force Hangar  
Area 51, Nevada _

"This," Sam explained as she checked her equipment, walking into the large hangar, which, despite its size, seemed to echo with an emptiness that belied the presence of the huge ship that sat within it, "is the Prometheus."

"I can't believe we're doing this," Jack remarked, trying to ignore the soft tug of nervousness in his chest. This was a spaceship. He had been on spaceships before but the bad guys usually built them, and the thought that humans had somehow managed to catch up to their level of technology with no explanation was a bit unsettling even for him. Maybe someday, he had thought, they would be able to do this—but not yet, it didn't seem right. For once, he actually felt like he understood some of what was going on in Sam's head.

"And I can't believe we're letting you," Kawalsky grumbled as they boarded the ship. "You're still not officially part of this command, and you're not our Colonel. Which doesn't even start on the archaeologist or the dead girl."

"Major," Sam scolded as they came to the bridge of the ship. "He actually is the Colonel—just not 'our' Colonel. And regardless, we need all the help we can get."

"How are you so OK with this?"

"I don't see that I have much of a choice."

"Samantha Carter is right," Sha're insisted, making eye contact with Kawalsky deliberately, positioning herself squarely in front of him. "Where you are from, I may be dead. However, where I am from I survived more than you can likely imagine. You have to trust us when we have come this far. All our worlds depend on this."

"How am I supposed to just accept that I saw you die four years ago and you're standing here, telling us what we need to do? We're just supposed to trust you? People that appeared in the basement?"

"Yes," Daniel interjected simply. "Like Sam said, what choice do we have?"

"And who are you to all of this, anyway?"

Sha're turned to look at Daniel, her brown eyes fixing on his and he felt another chill of a quiet unsteadiness, something a little sad and a little strange.

"...It's a long story," he replied, shifting uncomfortably.

"One hour until lift-off," came a voice from the intercom—a deep male voice from further up the bridge—the pilot.

"Places everyone?" Jack suggested, trying to cut down on the tension.

\---

 

_Five Hours Later_

Hyperspace was quiet. Too quiet, and Daniel couldn't ignore the nagging feeling in his gut anymore.

Sha're was alive, and she wouldn't even really talk to him.

"Sha're?" he asked as he found her, gently touching the back of her arm as he came up behind her.

"Daniel," she replied, looking up from the steaming cup in her hand.

"You and coffee—never would have thought."

"I would prefer it were grapefruit juice. We have it at h—Never mind," she said, quickly correcting herself and putting the cup down with a resolute motion.

"I've missed you. I'm so sorry, I--"

"Daniel," she said, gently touching his wrist. "I would never have blamed you. I never have blamed you."

Daniel felt as if he might say something stupid if he tried to say anything so instead, for once he was silent. Reaching out, he touched her hair, running his fingers down through her ponytail, pulling it forward over her shoulder as he caught her eyes.

Sha're let her eyes start to fall shut, thinking back across the time since she had been gone. Leaning in, her hand went from his wrist, trailing up and feeling the fabric of his shirt until she was able to wrap her hand around the back of his neck. Her lips brushed against his and she felt the familiar moment's hesitation, the brief moment of seeming disbelief that Daniel always had every time she kissed him.

And Daniel didn't believe it for a moment. This life that he had had to accept never having, it—she--was right here. He started to kiss her back, hands gripping her waist.

Then, abruptly, Sha're pulled away.

"No, Daniel," she hummed, rubbing her lips together and looking away. "I cannot do this."

"You're right," he replied, clearing his throat. "We shouldn't. Job to do."

"That is not my concern."

"What?"

"I am sorry, Daniel. You... I care for you, but you are not my husband. You are a different man, and I am not your wife."

And in spite of all the confusion of the last few weeks, nothing had seemed quite so clear. Daniel felt the weight on his chest, settling in as heavy as it had been before she had died, after she had died, all of it. He touched her hair one more time, and then let her go.

"...Right. I'm sorry."

\---

_On the Bridge_

"Reaching destination in ten minutes."

"Tok'ra ship hailing us."

"All SG-teams report to the bridge."

\---

"Daniel, what's going on?" Jack asked as they prepared to load into their glider ships.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, but you do. Where's Sha're?"

"I think she's with Sam."

"You don't know?"

"Nope."

"Fine, fine. You know I'm not one to pry."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"Sounds like you and I are gonna go try to clean up the mess that...I... the other me, left."

"Me? I can see why Kawalsky would trust you, even if he'd never admit it, but he doesn't know me at all."

"No, but Sam does. She knows you can do this."

"Can I? We shouldn't even be here."

"You were the one who said we should go on this wild goose chase."

"We didn't have much of a choice."

"What did you think was going to happen, Daniel?"

"Nothing. I didn't think. How am I supposed to just--"

"Just what?"

"Never mind."

\---

The vacuum of space's silence, its black darkness, seemed eerily fitting, Daniel thought as Jack piloted the small ship toward Morpheus' ship. The stealth material used to cover their ship made it seem like it – and they – existed outside of time. For all Daniel knew, it may have. Morpheus' ship itself seemed to give off a kind of aura, something that made him want to run and hide. Still, in his current frame of mind, that just made him want to stop this even more.

"You get the feeling this is too easy?" Jack asked into his mouthpiece, breaking the silence.

"It wasn't supposed to happen, anyway."

"O'Neill," came Teal'c's voice from another of the gliders. "The Tok'ra do not know if you are still alive within Morpheus' ship. If we are aboard the ship, you may begin to experience symptoms of the phenomenon known as entropic cascade failure."

"Yeah, well, I—we, I guess, will handle it. If I made it. God, that's weird."

"Tell me about it," Daniel agreed.

Explosions fired silently as the Asgard ship's weapons fired at Morpheus' shields.

"Here we come, Death Star," Daniel muttered cynically, going through the motions Sam had showed him to do his part in getting their gliders through the shields.

\---

"So where did we end up?" Jack asked before powering down their own stealth technology. Being the invisible man in the invisible ship was kind of fun.

"Storage compartment, bottom deck," Teal'c explained quickly, more confident to get out of his own glider. "We must move quickly."

"Of course we'd be on the bottom, right?"

"Jack, cynicism pause, please?" Daniel chimed in.

"Fine," he agreed, powering down and getting out of the glider with practiced agility. You could get out of one fancy two-seater plane, you could get out of any of them.

"Members of Apophis's former Jaffa are aboard. Many of them are under the influence of Morpheus' hypnotic drugs and mind control techniques. I will likely be able to get past them," Teal'c remarked, moving his staff weapon around in his hands, getting a firmer grip on it. Sometimes, the way Teal'c looked at that thing made Jack feel a little uneasy.

"Daniel and I will take the other way up," Jack said, leaving no room for discussion.

Teal'c marginally quirked his eyebrows, looking a bit skeptical.

"Are you certain that would be wise?"

"We got this," Jack replied, grabbing the back of Daniel's arm and pulling him along before he could try any of that voice of reason stuff.

"Jack, we really don't know if--"

"Daniel, if they find one of us, it's better that they don't find all of us. Besides, you know the layout of these space pyramid thingies and so does Teal'c, and you can't go on your own."

"Gee, thanks."

"Hey, just being honest. Now, shh."

Daniel obligingly "shh'd", taking out his zat gun and following Jack through the orange-lit corridors, vigilant and thinking about how much he hated the color orange because of these things now. Yellow wasn't much to look at either, anymore.

Jack could hear Teal'c's staff weapon firing in the distance. At least, he hoped it was Teal'c's, as everything else was eerily quiet.

"Daniel," Jack hissed, glancing over his shoulder.

The only problem was that Daniel didn't seem to be there at all.

\---

 

Teal'c was vigilant and absolutely silent. Morpheus' ship may seem familiar, just like every other Goa'uld mothership to Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson, but to him, everything about it seemed wrong.

It was strange enough, creeping through the hallways undetected, rather than marching through them proudly, defending them. For a brief moment it was as if Teal'c felt his muscle memory betraying him, and something seemed to move both to his right and to his left, right in his peripheral vision. Like the constant flickering of human fluorescent lights, for the briefest, most undetectable of moments, he thought that the deck of the ship had gone completely dark, completely silent. It was almost as if the ship itself had ceased to exist and Teal'c had existed for a moment in a dark, empty room. No up, no down, no light, no sound—everything vanished in a blink.

And yet Teal'c knew he had not blinked. He would not for a moment allow something to take him by surprise.

When his eyes scanned the corridor again, it took a moment to understand what he was seeing. In front of him and to either side stood four of Apophis's guards—four of the guards he had killed when he had saved O'Neill, Captain Carter, and Daniel Jackson from dying at their hands. He waited, discreetly gripping his staff weapon more firmly. He had been in command over all of Apophis's Jaffa before he had deserted the cause of the false god. It stood to reason that he would still be more skilled with his weapon than those who had once been beneath his command.

The fact that his assumption was soon proven incorrect was at least as disconcerting and potentially frightening as what happened next.

From behind, a familiar, grating voice boomed through the ship, unnaturally loud and echoing.

"Shol'va! Kneel before your god."

Teal'c did not move suddenly. He was calm and he felt something that was strangely like a smile twitching at his lips. He had been bested, and it made no sense at all. For a brief moment, he thought back to his teacher, Bra'tac, and how disappointed he would be with this turn of events.

"Apophis. You are no god to me," he said calmly, no longer even feeling the need to put as much effort into the distaste that seemed to be literally a taste on his tongue, which usually caused him to nearly spit out the words.

"You will bow before me. You will worship me. Even if you must sleep," the voice continued, each statement punctuated with a sickening, slow pause. Apophis seemed to be calculating, not quite as rash as Teal'c had known him to be when he had served him as his slave.

"I shall not!"

And yet Teal'c again found himself wrong, or rather, that he had not been correct to boast. Within moments, without even discerning a blur of vision in the corner of his eye, Teal'c was face down, prostrate on the floor. Completely inert.

Asleep.

\---

 

Daniel awakened, and the first thing he noticed was that his hand no longer held a zat gun. He tried to feel for it, see if he'd dropped it, despite knowing it was wishful thinking. When he tried to move however it became apparent that the lack of a weapon was perhaps the least of his concerns. Everything in him hurt, and his fingers only barely twitched in response to his increasingly desperate attempt to garner some control over his body. He felt like he was caught on the plane between sleeping and waking, his heart pounding faster and faster, but for all that he couldn't quite process the reason for his fear. He must have been dreaming...

Dreaming.

He opened his eyes, feeling the tingling numbness in his arms as they were held taught above his head. He must have never moved at all, only dreaming that he needed to try, but here and now he couldn't. He swallowed hard, looking around the room and trying to remember how he had gotten there.

He saw dull orange and yellow, flickering lights that made his head swim and everything tinge red at the edge of his vision. The power must be failing, but why would that be happening? There hadn't been a firefight on this ship. He couldn't see anything physically wrong with it.

At the edge of the shadows, brilliant, bright light blinded him. A door had opened, and Daniel could no longer tell whether he was lying down or suspended from the ceiling. The light seemed to come from everywhere, piercing through his aching head. Then, it was gone again, replaced by the flickering unreality of what seemed to be failing lighting aboard a Goa'uld ship. Morpheus's ship, he remembered.

Steady footsteps approached, measured. Sometimes it seemed as if it were only one person approaching, then it seemed as if there were an entire army, echoing through the tiny space with a purposeful march.

Daniel squinted and tried to focus his eyes, realizing that his glasses were gone. Again.

Finally, a familiar figure came into view, but as soon as it did, Daniel knew none of this made any sense.

"Apophis," he said aloud, almost immediately wishing he hadn't voiced it. Of course, he wasn't even sure that he had.

"You are wise to recognize your God," the deep, double-voice replied.

"You really might try being quiet more often, it suits you," Daniel said brazenly. He tried to rotate his wrists, searching for some way to escape. He felt a surge of emotion, one that he had believed he had put behind him. Searing hatred, a thirst for revenge that he had not known since Shifu had shown him where it could lead. Here, now, though, it didn't seem to matter. They were not on Earth, and no one he loved was in danger here. It was only him; and the woman he loved was dead, and before she had died, she had been taken, broken, violated by the thing that held him here now. The situation might seem bad, but either he was going to die or he wasn't, and he would _never_ submit to Apophis.

The impact of the back of Apophis's hand, his signet ring leaving a shallow gash across his cheek as it dragged away, was the last thing Daniel had expected to feel. He had braced himself for execution, but it didn't matter. It was impossible for Apophis to take anything, even his dignity, from him anymore.

The hand didn't move from his face, and he could feel its heat, blood rushing to his skin, and of the fingertips just beyond his ear. His eyes had closed, instinctively from the impact, but before he could open them again, the fingertips touched his skin, traced the outline of his ear, slowly working their way down the outline of his jaw.

Daniel snapped to attention, opening his eyes. When he did, they met with familiar brown ones. Not the glowing eyes of a Goa'uld, of Apophis. They were perfect, round, bright, curious eyes.

"Sha're," he breathed as her fingers kept trailing down, slowly, sending hot chills down his spine. For a moment, he believed that maybe it had all been just a nightmare. He had been unconscious, and now he was waking up. Something else had gone wrong with their universe-hopping—it wouldn't have been the first time. Maybe they had traveled through a universe, very quickly, where truly everything that could go wrong had. He swallowed, trying to moisten his lips so he could speak again, ask what had happened. He could have sworn...

Then her eyes narrowed and glowed, sending a wave of fear and unmistakable nausea through him.

"Daniel," she intoned, with Sha're's voice and cadence even as her eyes glowed. Daniel was confused, couldn't remember from their previous experience with the Goa'uld if that was even possible, but he found it hard to focus on anything when Amaunet was looking at him through his wife's eyes, a breath away from him, touching his face.

She drug her fingertips through the tiny trails of blood that seeped down from the gash in his cheek, smile widening as she felt the unintentional flinch as she brushed over the cut itself, the salt on her human host's skin burning it.

"You're dead," Daniel insisted. So many of the last few things that had happened to him had seemed like dreams, one right after the other, each falling like dominoes, pressing down into one darker than the last. Only, it was this one, of all of them, that he wished that he could wake up from.

"I am sure your wife is wounded by your hatred for her," Amaunet replied as her eyes stopped glowing and her voice became layered, deeper.

"I do not hate my wife."

"You must. You are very disappointed that this body is not dead, vacant, empty. I own this vessel. If I die, she will die with me."

"You're wrong," Daniel growled, thinking back to the Sha're he and Jack had been traveling with for days, weeks, maybe even months now. She was alive, and he could hear her breathe when she slept. She still laughed, and she still loved, even if it was another version of him, one he couldn't help hating sometimes.

"The entirety of your life is but a falsehood," Amaunet proclaimed, hand sensuously running down his neck, finally gripping around his throat as if to choke him, though she didn't squeeze, only smiled, chuckled.

Daniel forced himself not to be unnerved. It was impossible that she was responding to the thoughts in his mind. The Goa'uld didn't have any kind of mind reading ability. This creature that inhabited his wife knew nothing at all of him. Still, founded or unfounded, Daniel had trouble showing no reaction as she continued with her taunting, hands roaming over his body in a way that made him want to curl inward. It was so familiar and yet completely foreign, and it made him think of Hathor, all lust and strategy. Only these were Sha're's hands, moving under the control of a vicious puppeteer rather than under any influence of her own.

"My host cannot help you. She is strong, spirited, but mere cattle beneath her goddess. She does not believe, but she shall be purified by her service to me. The loudest of the Shol'va can be redeemed by silent obedience, and her rebellion is heard no more..."

\---

_Aboard the Prometheus_

"Sir? Colonel O'Neill? Come in, sir," Sam tried again, feeling yet another thread of hope fray as there was no reply, not even static.

"Any luck, Captain?" Kawalsky asked, not even thinking about all the other superior or equal officers that were on the bridge, or the fact that he was briefly ignoring anything and everything about rank. In this particular moment, it felt like they were losing Jack all over again.

"No," came Sam's cursory reply as she pressed another button on the comm-system. "Teal'c? Do you read? Come in, Teal'c." She sighed, feeling helpless disgust.

"How long have they been gone?"

"_Two_ hours, sir," Sam replied, leaning her forehead against her hand for a moment before sitting back and forcing herself to stare at the controls in front of her, hoping for an idea or spark of genius.

For a moment, Kawalsky felt a tightening in his chest and stomach, but then he forced himself to swallow and ignore it.

"I said we never should have trusted them," he said, trying to maintain an upbeat swagger in spite of the fact that things looked bleak. They were still at a stalemate, it seemed, for some reason, in spite of the fact that some of their own had apparently been able to infiltrate the ship. Nothing was happening, and that was perhaps worse than fighting and dying, and the only thing that could possibly make this any easier was to somehow convince himself that those people, except for Teal'c, weren't his people at all. Teal'c could come out of this yet, but the thought of Jack dying for this twice was more than Kawalsky could simply accept, no matter what he had to believe. He reached out and touched Carter's shoulder, briefly, speaking in a lower voice, "Hey, Captain, it's all right. We're going to get out of this and we don't know that the Colonel is dead. This whole _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ thing wasn't part of the plan, but we're not out of the race yet."

"Major," Sam replied, tensing and shrugging off the attempt at comfort. "This isn't something to take lightly. Both the Colonel and Dr. Jackson are as real as the J—Colonel we know. They have lives and families and—where's Sha're?" she asked, it occurring to her that she hadn't seen the third member of their visiting party since they had lost contact.

"Dead girl?" Kawalsky growled back, trying to understand why Carter cared so much and why he cared at all. Things weren't supposed to happen this way. When she offered nothing but as wilting a look as her military sensibilities would allow her, he almost chewed on his next reply, "...she was prayin' or something in the mess last I saw her."

"Praying?"

"Yeah, something. Her legs all folded up and her eyes closed, sitting on a table. Kinda like Teal'c does at night."

Sam frowned a little, thinking, eyes losing focus.

Kawalsky wasn't sure if he should roll his eyes or ask her what she was thinking. A common dilemma. He had nearly decided on the second one when her expression changed yet again and she got up, bolting from the bridge.

"Where the hell are you going?" he asked.

"This isn't working," she offered as her only explanation. She slowed just enough to give him opportunity to order her to stop, but he could only shrug in response, taking her place in the chair she had been in, picking up the comm device and looking at it.

\---

Sha're breathed slowly, in and out, in and out, focusing her mind and trying to imagine a red candle sitting in front of her. Teal'c's teachings about Kel'no'reem were something that interested both her and her husband, but she had never tried to use them to any end or in any space apart from the area that Teal'c had set aside for it before this. However, breath by breath, she knew she was falling deeper into the realm of her mind. She knew almost nothing of the machinery all around her, save the weapons, and weapons would do her no good this far away from Daniel and Jack and Teal'c.

Another few breaths, and it almost seemed that she had stopped breathing.

Then, she opened her eyes, and felt the pressure of the ground beneath her feet, the weight of heavy, ornate garments on her body for a brief moment before she realized that she was still wearing the clothes she had brought from Earth. Eyes now focused, she realized where she now stood: inside a Goa'uld ship.

\---

Sam rounded the corner and slowed her steps, finding Sha're sitting, as Kawalsky had said, on top of one of the mess tables. Her face was almost completely serene, and Sam wondered briefly why she would feel the need to do this. Sam had had a symbiote within her once, but she had never felt the need for Kel'no'reem afterward—it wasn't a biological need. Maybe Sha're was more like her than she realized, and this was just the other woman's way of focusing her attention. Whatever it was, she knew this wasn't easy, but she thought that maybe, just maybe, Sha're might know something that she didn't.

"Sha're?" she asked, reaching out tentatively and touching her folded knee, just to try and rouse her back to full consciousness. The other woman took one more deep, entranced breath, completely unresponsive to the touch. Then, without another sound, her body went slack and she nearly fell backward off the table and likely would have suffered a concussion had Sam not been there to catch her.

"Sha're?" Sam tried again, a bit more insistently, patting at her cheek quickly a few times, then checking her pulse, which she realized was extremely shallow after a moment. Sliding her forward a bit and lying her back on the table, Sam ran for the intercom and pressed the ominous, small red button.

"Medic, now!" she ordered, going back to Sha're and trying to discern what was causing this, and wondering what else could go wrong.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack's eyes widened and he tensed, his hands clutching his weapon as he looked around for whatever could have snatched Daniel away so quickly. What made it worse was that whatever had done it, had succeeded in taking him silently. Jaffa weren't known for being quiet in numbers, and Daniel wasn't going to _go_ quietly, either.

The maze of corridors remained silent until Jack heard the familiar sound of air releasing as one of the doors opened. He slipped around the opposite corner and listened, scarcely breathing for a long moment. He only heard one set of footsteps, faintly, and he hoped that somehow it might turn out to be Daniel, thus making his life a lot simpler He adjusted his grip on his zat, reaching down with his free hand running it down as close to his body as he could, to feel for his other gun, which he got the sinking feeling he might need to draw in a moment.

Jack crept forward with all the grace he had, trying to be silent as he tried to see who had come through the door. From experience, he knew that this was the moment when things usually went very, very wrong.

He moved inch by slow inch along the wall, he couldn't hear anything but his own breath. Then, nearing a bend in the corridor, he felt his honed soldier's sense buzzing at the back of his neck, down his arms and into the grip on his the gun. With the zat he could afford to shoot first and ask questions later.

He could almost feel the body heat of the person who had still, for some reason, not come away from the door.

He wanted to ask aloud if it was Daniel or Teal'c, but he knew that he was no good to anyone dead, at least not in this particular instance. Fighting all of the other thoughts that were going through his head, Jack resorted to the part of his mind that usually kept him alive, one that involved next to no thinking and acting on pure instinct. He took a deep breath and turned around the corner, weapon aimed, eyes searching for and locking onto the first target he saw.

It was only after he had felt the twitch in his finger to start pulling the trigger that he realized that the target he had taken confused him.

"Please do not discharge your weapon!" Sha're said, holding up her hands in the universal symbol of submission.

Jack blinked a few times, choosing at the last second not to fire and then looking around for some trick.

"We usually say 'don't shoot,' much faster and to the point," he said, blankly, as he refocused his eyes on her.

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. W-What... how... where did you come from?"

"Of that I am not certain," Sha're replied honestly, looking around and trying to remember where she had been moments before. For a moment, she had almost had trouble moving, believing that she was still fighting for possession of her body, only to realize that the demon was long gone and far away. Dead.

"You really are a ghost, aren't you?"

Sha're had almost mastered Jack's sense of humor during the time she had traveled with Daniel and him, but in that moment she was too distracted, too disoriented, to discern it. She looked at Jack, into his eyes, trying to tell if she was perhaps... dreaming. She shook her head, knowing that she was not. Then, realizing that she had to know for sure, she extended her hand, palm up.

"Am I a... ghost?" she asked, narrowing her eyes and watching Jack's face with genuine interest, curiosity, and fear in her eyes.

"What, are you a—No, of course not," Jack tried to explain, but then he recognized the fear in her eyes and swallowed, clearing his throat before reaching out and putting his palm over hers, very briefly squeezing her hand. "You feel real enough to me," he said, pulling his hand away a bit jerkily. Everything about traveling with Sha're or Daniel was surreal, he should have been used to it by now.

Sha're watched his hand and sighed with visible relief as she could feel the touch. She pulled her hand back and looked around, finally asking the question that she dreaded.

"Where's Daniel?"

"He's..." Jack looked around one more time, hoping for an easy answer. "...em... taking a walk, apparently."

"Morpheus has taken him into his world of dreams?" Sha're asked, feeling her heart beat a little faster, and hearing something rushing in her ears. Briefly, she felt dizzy and a sharp jolt run through her body, her veins, and she thought she might be dreaming to. Then, the sensation was gone and she was standing there next to O'Neill again, nothing changed.

Jack, as usual, failed to grasp to depth of her concern and, even if he did, wasn't going to let on.

"Down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, up the yellow brick road, your guess is as good as mine."

Sha're felt a brief surge of frustration at his response, but she swallowed it and simply looked into his eyes, her own not showing a single spark of amusement.

"Tough crowd," Jack replied, realizing that they were just wasting time and risking capture by standing here chatting but still feeling compelled to do it anyway.

"What course of action shall we take?"

"We've gotta look for him, I gue—Hold on, you never told me how you got here."

"I do not know. I withhold nothing from you, O'Neill. Now, my hus—Daniel, is likely trapped in a nightmare beyond imagining. We must find him."

"Wish everyone in my command was this straightforward. After you, sister."

Sha're ignored the tingling on the tip of her tongue, the desire to speak, and kept herself from frowning. Perhaps O'Neill was being affected by Morpheus's magic without being trapped, but if this was true, she knew they had a limited amount of time before she began to feel the effects of it as well.

"Do you have another weapon?"

Jack looked down and considered it for mere seconds before reaching down for his sidearm and giving the zat gun to Sha're.

"Point," he said to her, nodding forward. Met with another confused frown, he sighed and again nodded ahead of him. "You go ahead, I'll watch your back. Daniel disappeared from behind me, and I'm not gonna let you, too."

 

Jack didn't know how long they had searched. He kept looking around, trying to remember which paths they had taken, how to get back to their gliders; which one of the preceding chambers had been the one where Daniel had disappeared. Yet, every single thought seemed to float just at the edge of his mind. Jack knew that something must be cause it, because he didn't normally think in such complicated word-pictures. He cleared his throat, utterly unnerved by the absolute silence that had gone on for far longer than any of the sensors aboard a Goa'uld ship would usually allow. He waited on the penny to drop, knowing that things could not _possibly_ be this easy.

"Teal'c?" he asked into his radio, desperate for something to happen. He wondered how he could have forgotten to check in for so long. He had tried once with no reply, and then it was as if every thought that something might be wrong with Teal'c had gone away. Granted, this wasn't _his_ Teal'c, but he didn't have a tendency to forget anyone with whom he worked, especially when going into enemy territory like this. "Come in, T., do you read me?"

_T.?_ he wondered. He couldn't remember if he had ever called Teal'c that before. He wondered where it had come from, and while giving people nicknames was an occasional pastime of his, everything that changed, shifted, felt as if it held some significance on which Jack could not put his finger.

Sha're heard Jack's words, but they were muffled, distant. She began to breathe heavily again, as if she had never moved from her place seated on the table aboard the Prometheus. She could see everything around her moving past, but she felt as if she were closing her eyes more tightly and then relaxing, concentrating on the stillness and the dark. Her feet guided her around the ship, the fingertips on her free hand just shy of touching the wall. She was not sure if she had navigated the intricate maze of the ship through still-forgotten memories or if something else was guiding her, but she knew exactly where she had to go.

The lack of response from Teal'c became just one more thing added to Jack's list of things that didn't make any sense and it didn't make him happy. He looked around, aiming his gun in every direction that he turned. Realizing that they were still alone, he cleared his throat and decided to say the first thing that came to his mind. Anything to break the completely unnatural silence.

"You managed to get on this ship without anyone noticing, by yourself, without a weapon?"

Sha're glanced backward, drawn back from the near-trance that was allowing her to find her way.

"I do not know how I have come to be here. It was not my intention to arrive. I was trying to find a way to help when the Prometheus lost contact with you."

Jack's step almost faltered and he felt a pinprick of dread in his chest.

"Lost contact?"

"Yes. The Prometheus had been trying to contact you for more than an hour when I left the bridge."

"More than an hour?" Jack continued, voice raising its pitch half an octave without his consent. "We've not been over here for more than thirty minutes."

"This is the way Morpheus has defeated all of the System Lords from where I come."

"You know, that might be a place to start. Where exactly do you come from?"

"I am from another universe, another with an Earth and a Chappa'ai, one with yourself and Samantha Carter and... Daniel Jackson."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I've seen this before," Jack said, pausing for a moment when he realized what he had just said. He really needed to get out more, with normal people. Beer and the Simpsons, that's what he needed right now, not this universe-breaking crap. He almost thought better of the next thing he wanted to say, but then decided that there was no point. "What I'm saying is... why did we trust you? I mean, not that you're not... a lovely woman," he said, awkwardly, realizing that what he was saying might sound a little insulting, "but this is nuts. We'd seen you for five minutes when you were _dead_ an hour before, and we just come with you? Something about that doesn't add up to me."

Sha're sighed, exasperated at this point. She could barely focus anymore and she felt like she was losing her grip on the intuition had previously seemed to be guiding her, so when they rounded the next corner into a room, she stopped and turned around, looking squarely at Jack with her eyes bright, determined.

"I told you the things that were—are--at stake if we do not stop the god Morpheus from--"

"They're not gods," Jack interrupted, from defiance and from habit.

"Perhaps they are not in true form, but you must look around you and see. It does not matter if he has no divine right if he can wield divine authority and destroy our lives with it. If he can make us destroy them for him."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She sighed and looked away.

"Daniel?" Jack ventured. "I don't know what the problem is exactly, but y'know you two could just..."

Sha're knew that however that however that sentence was going to end, she would regret hearing it, so she turned around without any further acknowledgment and tried to find what she was looking for, something that lay just beyond the grasp of her mind. She furrowed her eyebrows and tried to decide whether to go right or left. After a moment, she did not know which direction she had chosen, only that this direction was the way she had to go to fix this, to find Daniel, to be able to go home to _her_ Daniel.

Jack knew he wasn't the most sensitive man in the world, but he could read all over Sha're's face, even in the moment that she had allowed him to see it, that he'd hit the nail on the head. More than that, he had and he had stuck his foot in it again because she obviously wasn't going to say anything more about it. He didn't want to have a sappy conversation right now either, here on enemy ground when two people he cared about were missing and every single thing about this mission seemed even more wrong than usual. He wasn't a big fan of emotional conversations anyway, but this girl was repressed things almost as much as Daniel had when he had lost her.

"Where are you going, anyway?" he asked, realizing that he couldn't it back or fix it.

"We must find Daniel and Teal'c," she replied evenly.

"And you just happen to know where the brig on this ship is?"

"I cannot explain what I know. I just know that we must go this way."

"Clairvoyance, that's comforting."

"Do you trust me, O'Neill?"

"Haven't got much choice," he grumbled. "...or much reason not to."

After they had rounded several more corners, Jack started to think that all of this looked familiar. Like the brig of a Goa'uld ship—he'd been in one of these things before. The fact that he found this comorting was the reason that Jack considered retiring sometimes, if only Hammond would let him.

Jack slowly trailed his gun from one corner, one door, to the next.

"Would really help if these things had... y'know, bars, windows, something. We can't break in and check all of them with just the two of us. We'd alert the whole damn ship. Although, the ship seems to be a ghost town. Not sure which part of this I like best, but I'm sure there's some part of it. Ideas?"

Sha're mostly ignored the strings of words that had little actual meaning to her, and her eyes shifted down the rows of doors. For a moment, she could see the interior of Apophis's mothership in her mind's eye. He had not had so many cells—he would likely have simply killed all of his prisoners before he would have wasted such valuable space. The fact that she could still remember his words, his thoughts, as he had conveyed them to his _lover_ was enough to make her feel uneasy inside—sick, as Jack would say. Forcing herself to focus, she continued to scan her eyes up and down until she pointed the hand that held the zat to a door on one side and used her free hand to indicate another door on the opposite side, a bit further down the corridor.

"They are being held there and there."

Jack approached her shoulder, watching, following with his line of vision to see which doors she had indicated.

"You know this how?"

"I can see it..."

"X-Ray vision?"

"I do not know how I know! You must trust me."

"Fine, fine. Do you know which is which?"

"I cannot," she said weakly, feeling a sharp pain in her head for a moment, dropping the zat gun and reaching for her temples.

"What's goin' on?"

"We must find them!"

"You said we had, now we've gotta go bust 'em out."

"_You_ must go."

"I can't be two places at once. I dunno, maybe you can, but... You go after Daniel and I'll go get--"

"No!"

"Look, this is no time to be--"

"No, you must go. I cannot, Daniel will--"

Jack wanted to roll his eyes. His kingdom for some people under his command that made some sense. He opened his mouth for a retort, but then both of them heard the rush of air as one of the cell doors opened. Instinctively, he pulled her close, backing both of them tight against the wall with a hand cupped over her mouth to muffle the confused questions or sharp breaths that might follow.

Sha're knew what Jack was trying to do, so she simply tilted her chin down to her chest so he would remove his hand. Then, she saw the zat gun, lying on the floor in the middle of the corridor where she had dropped it. She knew she should be afraid, but she felt strangely calm. She had a sense of dread but her breathing stayed the same, her heart rate seeming slow and steady in spite of everything happening around them. The pain had subsided, and she was entirely present again.

Jack, on the other hand, when he saw the zat gun, was anything but calm. He knew this was very, very not good. He looked around, searching for some way to get to it, but there was none.

True to form, the person who had left the cell chose to come in their direction, apparently heading to the other cell Sha're had pointed out.

When Jack saw _her_ he could hardly believe his eyes. He glanced beside him, just to confirm that Sha're was still the person standing next to him. The woman's double stood mere feet from them. Maybe she just wouldn't notice.

Amaunet knelt to the floor and picked up the zat gun, laughing softly to herself and turning toward them, taking her time in gripping the weapon and choosing a target. She pointed it at Jack first, nonchalantly. Jack thought that this near complete lack of defensive behavior was a bit odd, but he knew he couldn't complain. Both of them could have been dead by now.

Jack took the opportunity and aimed the gun at her, toward her chest and throat, knowing that those snake things had to wrap around people's spines to control them.

Amaunet was not at all fazed by this action and simply aimed squarely for Sha're.

Sha're simply looked into the eyes of the other woman and tried to understand how what she saw was possible. They had told her that she had died in this universe.' Or 'In this universe, they had told her she had died. Then, the rushing pain came back into her head and she struggled to remain standing, not to move.

"Would you kill her twice? Daniel has already seen her die once. Would you choose to bear responsibility this time?" Amaunet asked.

Somewhere, in the distance, there was a rhythmic, metal clanking that was giving Jack a headache.

On top of that, when he glanced toward Sha're he saw something he had really hoped he'd never have to see again; she looked like she was coming in two, and then normal again, like she was leaving an afterimage without moving at all. He had seen that once before, and he remembered what it meant, even if he couldn't remember what it was called. Somehow, there were two of them here, and she was dying. Jack kept his gun held steady, but the headache just kept getting worse, and he hesitated.

"If you fire your weapon, all of you will die," Amaunet warned, still smiling.

"Lower your weapon," Jack ordered.

"Do you believe you are in a position to control a god?"

"Don't you mean goddess?" Jack taunted, indicating his weapon and very slowly, almost imperceptibly, he hoped, he tried to put himself in Amaunet's immediate line of fire.

"You do not know the mysteries."

"Yeah, I thought that's why we called them unsolved back home--"

"M-Morpheus," Sha're managed to say through the splitting pain that felt like it was pulling her in two directions at once.

"What? No, Sha're. That's you. That's why you're... melting," he said.

"No, he--"

And that was when Amaunet took her shot, aiming past Jack in spite of his efforts to slowly put himself between Sha're and the zat. Only one more shot and...

Only Sha're had not been affected by the zat at all. When she realized this, she still felt the pain running through every inch of her but realized that absolutely nothing had changed when the weapon had fired.

Jack glanced behind him, realizing that Sha're had not fallen to the floor. Instead, she still leaned against the wall, pale and obviously pained but more like herself, even.

"O'Neill--" she started to say, about to try and _explain_ something again.

Doors from both directions opened and the clanking sound finally made itself known. Jack thought it didn't sound like normal Jaffa armor. It was too loud and heavy-sounding. Yet, in through the doors marched dozens of full-armored, metallic soldiers, all with a symbol on their helmets that Jack didn't know but immediately recognized as Goa'uld, wielding staff weapons. After a moment's observation, he realized that they moved in a perfect synchronization that could only come from machines.

"Are you ki--_robot_ Jaffa?" he asked.

"Silence!" Amaunet replied. Only she wasn't Amaunet anymore. When Jack's eyes focused on the Goa'uld again, she not only wasn't Sha're's evil twin anymore, but she had become a he. A very ugly, strange looking he. Pale, completely bald, hollow-eyed—this just wasn't getting any better.

Sha're looked around and realized just how hopelessly outnumbered she and Jack were. She knew that if they didn't somehow get out of here, they would lose everything. Then she realized that her heart continued to beat steadily. The pain had subsided again and she could go a bit further inside her own mind. She needed some way to get them out of here. She knew she had not come here in a ship. She had come here by...

"O'Neill," she said, brazenly and clearly disobeying the order of the god. "You are his only hope."

"Don't you go giving up—" Jack started to say, about to turn to her as he too realized that it was pretty much pointless to try to engage in a firefight at this point. There must be some reason they were still alive at this point. Only, when he turned to look at her, she had simply disappeared. For a moment, he feared that she was dead, but then realized that Daniel had simply vanished as well.

"What have you done with her?" he demanded, turning his attention back toward the Goa'uld. It felt oddly empowering, knowing that you could say or do whatever you liked because either way you were as good as dead.

"Your treachery will not be covered with ignorance," Morpheus replied, actually looked a bit annoyed at Jack.

So he didn't know where Sha're had gone either. But he did have Daniel.

"That _woman_," Jack groaned, turning to look for any trace of her again. He realized in that moment just how similarly infuriating she and Daniel could be. So that's why Daniel had liked her.

"Your escape was unexpected, but you shall be dealt with in time," Morpheus said, ignoring Jack's movements—there was no further escape possible. "Perhaps you would like to see _Daniel_," Morpheus said in perfect imitation of Sha're's voice and tone. "He would likely appreciate company before his death."

_Escape?_ Jack thought. Then, everything went dark.

~~~

"Do you know what's wrong with her?" Sam asked Dr. Fraiser as she looked at the instruments that were monitored Sha're as she lay in the hospital bed.

"We don't really have any idea. Her vital signs seem normal, but they plummet and spike with no discernible pattern or warning. Every time we think she's stabilized..."

"Is there anything we can do for her?"

"We just have to keep an eye-out right now. There's no precedent for what she might be going through."

"Entropic cascade failure?"

"From what you've told us about the phenomenon, it doesn't sound like it. Any counterpart she had here has been dead since the first mission to Abydos. She died in the rebellion."

This information was familiar to Sam, but it somehow just didn't sit right with her. Her own memories seemed to be rewrite themselves, betraying her.

"Is it all right if I stay with her?"

"She seems stable for the moment, but things could change again, very, very quickly."

"I won't be in the way."

"I know you won't, I'm just warning you."

Sam walked over to Sha're's bedside and took a seat in the chair, reaching out and touching the other woman's hand. Even though she had never met this woman before in her life, she knew that she was important to Daniel—someone that she shouldn't feel that she knew, but she did anyway. Regardless, it didn't matter. This woman might be dying, or at the very least she was apparently very sick; no one deserved to be alone during a time like that.

~~~

 

_"Why did we trust you?"_ Sha're kept hearing Jack's voice echo in her head.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that she again stood on her feet. This time she was back home—not on Abydos, but on Earth, inside the SGC. She found herself simply standing in the doorway of Daniel's office with no idea how she had come to be there.

She felt a spark of fear in her chest. It was not truly possible that she had been here the entire time? But no, she had not lost her mind. She looked down at her body, her clothing, seeing the evidences of the wear and tear from the last months completely gone.

Daniel looked up from the computer screen and smiled at her, simply pleasantly surprised. Nothing like the Daniel she had seen and interacted with these past few weeks.

"Dr. Fraiser's done talking for you for the day?"

"I... needed to see you."

"Is something wrong?" he asked, pushing himself away from the desk and turning to face her, getting to his feet and coming toward her, reaching out to touch her hand.

She gripped his arm firmly, as sure that he was there as she had been sure Jack had been in front of her an hour ago. She smiled a little, trying to believe for a moment that perhaps she had been under the influence of some horrible part of her forgotten memories from being Amaunet's host.

"Nothing. What are you doing, my husband?" she said, it feeling very warm and comfortable to be able to say that to him again without hesitation. This was her Daniel—not the painfully broken version of him that she had known—but then she decided to ignore that. It had been a dream, she tried to tell herself.

Daniel squeezed her arm gently and kissed her cheek quickly before turning back toward his desk, surprisingly energetic for someone who was just going to sit back down.

"I was just doing some research about Morpheus. In Greek myth he was the god of dreams, and I was trying to figure out if we can infer anything about how he works through the myths."

Sha're felt a tightening in her chest. It was real. So how was this possible? How was she back home and in the past? Why was she?

After a moment's weakness, she managed to walk to Daniel's shoulder and to look at the screen, attempting again to read the lettering in which Daniel wrote.

"Have you found anything?"

"Morpheus, god of dreams, son of Pasithea, goddess of hallucinations and the like."

She squeezed Daniel's shoulder, feeling herself fading again. Maybe this was all just some kind of hallucination. She glanced up at the clock, searching for some reason to leave. It was midday.

"I am sure you will find something that will help your world," she assured him, pressing a kiss to his temple and immediately pulling herself back, heading for the door. "I am sorry, husband. I must return."

He smiled tightly at her and nodded, going right back to his work. To him, it was just another day.

When Sha're exited Daniel's office, someone she did not know walked past without a word. Then, she lost awareness of the SGC and everything else around her yet again.

\---

The next time Sha're became aware of anything, she felt herself truly bound within her own body. She felt trapped again, host and slave of the demon inside. She struggled against it, as she had always tried to struggle against it. Yet, her hands did nothing that she tried to do. Her mouth and even her eyes were completely bent to the will of the thing inside her. Not only that, but she could feel it and almost hear it taunting her. In fact, the taunting was more real than anything she could see—everything else became simply a nightmare of lights and flashes and vague impressions of the world around her that made little sense.

Sha're knew she had to fight, though. Unlike before, she now knew that Amaunet could be defeated, destroyed.

Through her eyes, she saw a girl—not human, Jaffa. She recognized her, though she didn't know how. It was not until she heard and felt the demon speak through her mouth that she understood. This was Amaunet's servant, her aide.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sha're was aware of her baby. The little boy to whom she had given birth, the baby that should have been Daniel's, that he had helped bring into the world.

_My father kept him safe._

Sha're could feel the ghost of touch as Amaunet picked up the child from his basket and gave him to her aide, giving her sharp commands. Then, the Jaffa simply walked out of the tent, and Sha're knew that this was the last time she had ever seen her son, the one she had carried all those months when she had been herself, hardly able to understand the last year of her life.

It was an eternity, and Sha're no longer had control over anything. She felt like she could hardly breathe, let alone have any of the clarity she could remember before. She should not be here. This had happened before, and the Tok'ra had taken the demon out of her body.

Lifetimes later, Amaunet walked outside, and surveyed the battle occurring in a field below. Sha're immediately recognized the uniforms of the people opposing the Jaffa—Tau'ri.

Daniel approached her, and she wanted to tell him to run, but she had no choice as Amaunet taunted her and led Daniel into the tent.

He, too, asked about her son, but the child was already long gone.

Daniel held his gun on her, and for a moment she wished he would fire the weapon.

Amaunet stepped forward and fought Daniel down to his knees with the weapon on her hand, smiling, taunting him as she did it. She was also reminding Sha're, inside her mind, that disobedience to a god always meant death.

Sha're revolted against the thought again. She would not allow Daniel to die for this, even if she had to.

She fought to try to gain control of her arm, but no matter how hard she reached out, she couldn't change anything.

Over and over the thought kept running through her mind:

_I have to save him. I have to tell him about the boy._

Then, the demon was startled by something, and Sha're felt another burst of pain.

And then, again, she was free.

~~~

Jack awakened feeling like he had been doused with cold water. Then, searing, electric pain ran through his body and he felt like he was being pried open and in half. When his eyes opened, a sudden numbness came over him, and he saw Morpheus standing in front of him. Except, he could not decide if he was seeing Morpheus, Sha're, or Daniel. The thing that stood in front of him seemed to be all three at once, voice cycling between the three as it spoke.

"I do not know how you escaped, but Daniel's memories are entirely filled with thoughts of you. He is not of this universe, so there are things you are not sharing with your God."

Jack couldn't decide on a pithy enough comeback so he simply spat in the creature's face.

Wiping it aside with the back of its hand, Morpheus in turn slapped Jack with the back of her—his--its hand.

It settled into Sha're's form and stroked her hand down the side of Jack's face, mock-soothing the sting.

"You must be very envious of my husband. He may have lost me once, but how many times a day do you lose your son? How many times each night do you lose your wife?"

Jack looked away, not wanting this thing to see that it was affecting him. Not only that but it was more than a little weird, more than a little _sickening_ to have something that looked like Daniel's _wife_ trying to seduce him. Particularly when he could see Daniel mere feet away, lying helplessly, as if he had been sedated, on the floor just feet away. His clothes were dirty and there was a deep, bloodied cut on his face, but it didn't look like it was bleeding anymore. Daniel's eyes were open, barely, but Jack couldn't tell if he was understanding what he was seeing or even entirely conscious.

"It is not polite to ignore a woman," Morpheus continued, still using Sha're's face and voice and hands as she pulled Jack by the chin to face her, pressing her lips down over his sensuously. He wanted to push her away, but his arms seemed completely useless. All he could do was try and fail to resist with his teeth as everything he tried seem to weaken him more. His heart pounded—they were both probably about to die and Daniel was having to see this on top of everything else.

Much to his relief, the violent kiss finally ended, but Morpheus still stayed a breath's width away.

"Humans, you pretend to think of others, but you can only really think of yourselves. Perhaps you would prefer--" And then Morpheus looked and sounded like Daniel, "this."

The next kiss was even more traumatic, not only because something that seemed to have stolen _Daniel's_ face and voice was kissing him but because he knew Daniel lay just a few feet way. He heard the real Daniel's voice, almost like it made a single choking sound. And there was the root of this disgust—this _thing_ was tormenting them for its own amusement, and Daniel was already bloodied from the process, having to watch his wife and then himself do this. After what felt like a hundred years, Morpheus pulled away and Jack gasped for air, refusing to open his eyes.

He felt his arms go slack, suddenly able to move them again no matter how much it burned.

Finally, he realized that he had to open his eyes, and Morpheus had taken on the form of another woman—Teal'c's wife.

"I must deal with the Shol'va, but you will meet your fate soon enough. Dreams are the realm of hope—but nightmares are all the lie in your future, no matter what hope you may find in one another," she laughed as she walked away.

As soon as she had left, Jack took a deep breath and allowed himself to stare at the ceiling for moment, trying to collect himself. Then, moment over, he dragged himself to his knees, aching all over. He wanted to stand up, but his back and knees were not at all happy with that idea at the moment. Instead, he crawled over to Daniel and reached out for his cheek to inspect the cut.

Daniel raised his arm and hand weakly, trying to defend himself.

"Daniel," Jack said gently, trying to use the most rudimentary kind of comfort he knew to let him know that things were all right.

"J-Jack?" Daniel asked, groggily, as if it had just occurred to him who was sitting above him.

"Yeah, Daniel, it's me."

"It's really you?" he asked.

Jack's heart sank. He realized that, somehow, Morpheus had probably used his face as well as Sha're's to torture Daniel in some way.

"Yeah, Daniel, it's me," he replied, reaching out slowly to examine the cut that ran down his cheek.

Daniel flinched, trying to avert his eyes and move the cut away from reach.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," Jack said, a bit impatiently. He had never been all that good with bedside manner. Not that there was a bed anywhere in sight, he reminded himself, then felt even more uneasy at the thought of Morpheus using that kind of suggestion to eat away at their minds about one another.

"Sha're?" Daniel asked, his thoughts disjointed, his voice ragged and quiet. "Where is she?"

"She's... safe," Jack guessed. "Yeah, I think she's safe."

"No," Daniel said, sounding even more pained. "She isn't. She died. She dies... over and over and over in my head."

"Daniel, that's not real."

"You've got to find her."

"Me?" Jack asked, not because he minded doing things for Daniel but because he was confused and worried about the so-called logic that seemed to be running through Daniel's head. "No, no, no," he insisted. "If there's any finding going to be done, you're gonna help me."

"I... can't. I can't do anything. Nothing I do ever makes a difference."

"Daniel, when you start talking like this--"

"I just need to sleep. It won't matter... I... I found the boy."

"Yes, you did, but Sha're still doesn't want you rolling over. Now, I want us to get one thing—no, _two_ things straight. One: I'm not leaving you, so don't even try it. Two: Even if I would, I don't really see that there's a good way of getting out of here."

"Not leaving me?" Daniel queried, though his voice took on a tone that sounded more familiar, more like Daniel.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"You'd blow up a ship with me still on it, but you won't leave me even if means you get out of here alive and don't waste everything?"

Jack stopped touching Daniel and sat with his back against the wall, giving him an exasperated look.

"_Both_\--"

"Three."

"_All three_ times that's happened, you've asked for it."

"Not with the terraforming ship--"

"That was your own fault, and yes, you were asking for it. Still, I'm glad it worked out."

Daniel smiled, though it faded away quickly when he felt the sharp sting from the cut on his cheek. He exhaled and let out something that sounded like a weak attempt at a laugh. He tried to sit up, but found that it made him cough and he could feel bruises in places that he didn't know could be bruised.

"How long have I been here?" he breathed.

"I dunno. Apparently, we've been on this ship a whole hell of a lot longer than I can account for. That, or Sha're can't tell time."

"Sha're is here?"

"She... was..."

"Jack, what's going on?"

"Daniel, if I knew, I'd tell you. Believe me, if I knew..."

Daniel sighed heavily and managed to bring his hands up to his face, resting them against his forehead and slowly dragging them down, avoiding the gash.

"Why did we come here, Jack?"

Jack didn't want to say that he'd been asking himself the same thing. That wouldn't be terribly comforting. Instead, he looked down at Daniel, searching his friend's eyes when they met.

"I came here because you thought it was the right thing to do."

"You're blaming me?" Daniel asked, his voice edged with irritation.

"No! ...just, usually, and no, I don't know why, you're right about things like that."

"We're trapped here. Useless. And we're... probably never going home."

"Daniel, stop talking like that." Jack sighed, remembering how Sha're had told him that he was Daniel's only hope. Great job he was doing here.

Daniel tried again to sit up, managing it this time from sheer stubbornness. He couldn't stop himself reacting to the pain that rushed through his abdomen, but he bit it back, pressing his back against the wall beside Jack.

"...what did he do to you?" Jack ventured, knowing that that wasn't necessarily the best question he could ask, but he needed to know if he could help.

"...uh... pretty much the same thing that he did... to you," Daniel said slowly, eyes meeting Jack's briefly before snapping away. "Though not... exactly."

"I'm not as badly beat up as you are."

"You haven't been here long enough?"

Jack realized he needed to eventually address what Daniel had seen Morpheus trying to use against him by taking the form of his friend, but that didn't mean he wanted to bring it up first.

"Well he's gonna have to open the door sooner or later, and I'll kill him," Jack decided, looking Daniel up and down and realizing he didn't just have superficial injuries. It made his blood boil, slowly simmering, but by the time Morpheus returned he was sure he would have thought of something sufficiently violent to kill him, even if he had to die trying.

Daniel smirked a little, doubtful that such a boast could be carried out in their current condition. Still, he secretly appreciated the sentiment that he heard in Jack's voice. For all he knew it might have been a concussion that led to the next train of thought, but he found himself remembering disjointed flashes of Morpheus looking quite a bit like him and _kissing_ Jack. Daniel had never, ever though of doing that before now, but his mind began running without him, deciding Morpheus must have believed such a kiss while wearing Daniel's face would affect Jack in some way.

"Why are you so... protective... of me?"

"I'm not," Jack replied automatically, defensively. "You're a member of my team, and people or _gods_ don't mess with members of my team and live to tell about it unless they've got a damn good reason."

"You trust Sam and Teal'c to take care of themselves."

"You're an _archaeologist_."

"That's not a synonym for helpless."

"I never said it was. Do you think I treat you like you're helpless?"

"No, it's just..."

"Look, Daniel," Jack interrupted, afraid that he knew where this was probably going. "You've been a part of my life for longer than anyone else at the SGC. Not a lot longer, relatively speaking, but... you saved my life. I owe you."

"Over and over again?"

"Never said I'd never call in a favor one of these days."

"And yet you're willing to blow me up if need be?"

"Daniel, it's a matter of trust and making tough calls where I have to. If you don't follow my lead, I've got to do my job."

"Trust?" he pursued.

"Daniel, where are you going with this?!" Jack demanded, in spite of the fact that, when his raised voice gave way to the quiet whir of the room, when he found his eyes locked on Daniel's, he thought that maybe he didn't want to know the answer.

Daniel looked at Jack thoughtfully, his mind moving much faster than it usually did, making connections where he wasn't sure there were any. He licked his suddenly dry lips out of habit and exhaled through his nose.

"If I saved your life, then you saved mine," Daniel said simply. True, he had kept Jack from blowing himself up once, but if it hadn't been for Jack, he would have never had the life he had had with Sha're. Or the life he was going to have to live after her.

"I didn't do anything I wasn't--"

"You can't chalk it up to just duty."

"Watch me," Jack said, but it was a weak, quiet objection. He thought that he should probably look away from Daniel's eyes—they were intense and bright the way they always were before Daniel had a stupid, brilliant-in-his-estimation idea. And yet he didn't look away, didn't move.

"I am," Daniel replied. He knew he might regret it later but as he forced himself to think about it, he realized that in Morpheus' estimation, Jack considered he, Daniel, a weakness. Or his subconscious did in his dreams. Maybe that was true, but Daniel decided that they could also be each other's strength.

After all, Jack had been right. They wouldn't be there if not for one another, and they still needed each other.

And so, he kissed him.

In Jack's mind's eye, he pulled—no _pushed_ away—but, that's not what happened at all. Instead, he found himself kissing back, completely lost in it. This wasn't just an experimental, peck kiss. No, both of them were almost completely beyond that from the word go.

This was just like when they disagreed on everything. This was just like when they were the only two people in the world who really understood what they had lost.

This was simply _them_. Two people, who never should have met in any normal life, forced together, breaking themselves against each other. Bruised, broken, bleeding. And it was perfect.

\---

 

When Sha're once again opened her eyes, she found herself staring at the ceiling of a Goa'uld ship. She felt weak, and everything around her was dark. She wondered again if she had been dreaming, but then realized that the god of dreams was the reason she was here. Steadily, she got to her feet and looked around. She realized that she was unattended, free, alone.

As she silently surveyed the room, she heard something. Ragged, pained breathing. The room was bare except for glowing power crystals, all arranged inside a panel next to something that looked like an upright, metal bed. Jack was affixed to the bed, held there with a complicated series of tethers and wires. His eyes were closed and he seemed completely unaware of everything surrounding him, but he kept reponding to some kind of pain.

Sha're approached cautiously, eyes moving down to the panel of crystals. She did not entirely understand what she saw, although she as she wanted to help him, set him free, she found her hand drawn to several of the crystals in the middle. Taking a deep breath, she took them out, one by one.

As she did, the soft whir of the machine died slowly into silence, the light from all of the crystals that were still inserted in place gradually dimming to almost nothing. When she pulled out the final crystal that she had felt she should, Jack's eyes opened suddenly enough to make her jump back slightly.

He stared at her wildly for a moment and gather his mind. Narrowing his eyes and moistening his lips, he spoke.

"W-Who are you?"

"O'Neill?" she asked, worried. "Do you not know me?"

"I'm the one asking the questions," he said in a low growl, struggling against his bonds already in spite of the obvious physical weakness. He looked too pale, shaking even, as if he hadn't had anything to eat or drink in a very long time.

"You can trust me," she assured him, pressing her hand briefly to his shoulder before setting about with nimble, small fingers, trying to find the way to set him free.

"Then tell me who you are," he warned.

She looked up at him, searching his eyes as she loosened the straps, one by one. He truly did not seem to recognize her. Then, she was not sure why she answered him as she did:

"Pasithea."

"Pasta-what?"

Sha're faltered for a moment, thinking that perhaps she had gotten the name wrong. But then she remembered the O'Neill she knew—both of them—and she realized that this was probably just another case of him showing that he was showing his frustration with something or simply not taking the time to listen.

"Pasithea," she repeated calmly. "Do you know where you are?"

"I assume I'm still on Morpheus's ship. Screwed up somehow. Again. What are you, one of his concubines?"

"No, I belong to no man," she said defensively, automatically. She could almost hear Daniel assuring her that she was her own person, insisting that she think of herself in such a manner, from the moment they had met.

"You're not Goa'uld—Tok'ra?" he asked, barely masking the irritation in his voice at the thought.

"No. I am human."

Jack glanced suspiciously down at the dismantled panel of crystals as he shook and rubbed his arms, trying to regain feeling in them after Sha're had unfastened them.

"Then how do you know so much about these ships?"

"I was once a host to the Goa'uld Amaunet."

"French one?"

"O'Neill, you must concentrate. What has happened?" She realized that he must be the O'Neill that belonged to this Universe—but if that was true, then what had happened to the one she had traveled here with?

"I don't know. You seem to be the one who was awake through all of it."

"I was not."

"Awake?"

"I was not present when you were captured. What has happened to you?"

"I'm... not really sure..." Stumbling out of the chair and past Sha're, his back tense and tight and causing him to walk in a way that resembled Frankenstein's monster, he turned to take a look at the thing that had held him in place. "Hey! I've seen one of those things before. That guy, with the garden."

"What are you speaking of, O'Neill?"

"Never mind," he said, looking around. "Got any weapons? Sticking around here very long doesn't seem like a good idea. I never saw whatever happened coming."

"I do not have any weapons."

"And yet you got in here to bust me out? Who _are_ you?"

"I told you--"

"Not your name."

"I cannot tell you," she said, meeting his eyes sincerely. And she could not, she did not have time, and she did not know what might happen if she told him too much with the other O'Neill still here somewhere, hopefully still alive. Then, she turned to the door, walking to it and running her hands up and down on either side of it.

"What, is it just gonna open for you?"

"No. I am searching for the crystals. We must find Teal'c."

"Teal'c is here?" Jack asked, obviously upset by the news. "They got him, too?"

"He was captured today."

"I've been here longer than a day?"

"We were told you had been here for several weeks," she replied, looking over her shoulder as she finally found the panel and opened it.

Jack felt himself getting even weaker for a moment, dizzy. Weeks?

Sha're took a deep breath and tried to remember; her hand moved almost without thought to the right crystals, pulling them out, one by one.

Jack came behind her, picking up as many of the crystals he could and pocketing them.

"Never know when you might need these," Jack suggested, thinking about how much Carter would love to get her hands on these if--_when_\--he got back.

The door slid open and on other side stood two of the mechanical Jaffa. Jack instinctively tried to knock one of them out, only to realize that robots weren't easily persuaded into unconsciousness. Just when he began to count down the seconds of life he and the girl who had saved him had left, she ducked down; picking up three of the crystals that he had dropped, she pressed them in quick succession into the panel in a different configuration than before.

This time her movements caused a deafening whir to sound, one that echoed throughout the ship The crystals in the panel glowed bright white, before everything went dark as all the Jaffa in unison, fell to the floor.

"What are you, a guardian angel?" Jack guessed, both impressed and exasperated by everything that was happening.

"I am human," she said again, pushing past him and running to the door of Teal'c's cell.

"Then how do you know all of this stuff?"

"I do not know, but I believe it may be because this world was never meant to be."

"What?"

"Morpheus's world of dreams. He is tearing every world apart."

"You mean you're from one of those alternate universe things Carter was talking about?"

"Yes."

"So did you come through the mirror he's got in this ship?"

"No," Sha're replied, though O'Neill's response relieved her somewhat. So there was a mirror on this ship.

"All of the ship's systems no longer work. We will run out of air very quickly, and none of the doors are working. You must help me push them aside."

Jack leapt at the opportunity to do something and did as she had told him. He helped the woman push apart the strangely inert doors.

Inside, they found Teal'c strapped to another one of those chairs, arms tensed and fists balled tight as he groaned against something he was experiencing in the chair.

"Can you help him?" Jack asked her, fingers itching to get Teal'c out of that contraption.

"Yes," she replied, repeating the process as quickly as she could, pulling out the crystals systematically.

"Can't you just rip them all out?"

"He might die."

"Take your time, then," Jack insisted, though he could hardly stand the waiting. Then, something occurred to him. "Shouldn't that be off anyway since the power's out?"

"It is not."

"Great. Just checking."

As soon as she had the chair disengaged, Jack practically tore the bindings off Teal'c s body, even as the Jaffa awakened.

"You with us, T.?"

"O'Neill."

"Oh, I get it, she must be related to you," Jack commented, nodding toward Sha're as he made sure Teal'c was on his feet.

Teal'c's vision cleared and he took a step backward in spite of himself.

"You are not Amaunet?"

"No, I am Sha're."

"I thought you said you're name was Pasta-fields, or something—Pasithea, that was it."

"There is no time. We must find the others!"

"What others?" Jack complained, but when Teal'c followed Sha're across the corridor he supposed he might as well do the same.

When they entered the third cell, they found a line of five chairs, though these had less complicated straps. Two of them were occupied—one by a person Jack had never seen before and one by... him.

"Does someone want to explain to me what the hell is going on here?"

"You must find a way out of here," Sha're told Teal'c.

"We can go to the center of the ship. It appears that all of the Jaffa aboard this vessel are artificial and currently inactive."

The other two men woke up in the devices, and Sha're and Teal'c set them free as quickly as possible.

Jack was too busy staring at his double to move for a moment.


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as Jack and Daniel found themselves on their feet again, they looked around. Glancing at each other, they wondered whether what they had just experienced had actually occurred and if so, just how embarrassed they should feel about it.

Breaking Daniel's gaze, Jack's eyes moved and saw another version of himself, staring at him like he had seen his own ghost. Jack couldn't really blame him for what followed next. He felt that splitting, strangely terrifying pain again, more intensely this time. He felt like he was being torn apart. He had seen Carter go through something like this once, and it had looked painful then. Good to know he was right about that.

Daniel recognized it too and reached out his arm to support Jack. He met Sha're's eyes and looked around again.

"We don't have much time," he insisted.

"We must get to the center of the ship," Teal'c said again, preparing to lead the way.

Just as they left the cell and found themselves in the corridor again, a very pale light that made everything seem tinged with shadow replaced the almost complete darkness.

Daniel, arm still around Jack, helping him move in spite of the effects of the other version of him being so close, looked up at the ceiling. The lights began to flicker, slowing phasing up to ever brighter levels.

"Running might be a good idea," he suggested, voice as even as he could keep it. He hadn't even begun to process why all the Jaffa seemed to be unconscious, but he didn't have time to think about it. "Jack?" he asked.

"I'm fine," he replied, pulling away from Daniel and standing on his own feet.

"This is not an unwise decision," Teal'c replied, looking around, continuing to assess the situation.

~~~

 

"We haven't heard anything for three hours, sir. We should fire on the ship," the captain of the _Prometheus_ said to Kawalsky. He had every bit of authority he needed to do it without the Major's consent, but he wasn't going to do that.

Kawalsky stared forward, blankly for a moment. He activated the comm device again, but he didn't say a word. Instead, he simply released the button and got up.

"Hold your fire," he insisted, headed to the medical bay where he knew Sam was sitting with Sha're.

Rounding the corner into the relatively small clinic, he tapped softly on the plexiglass pane to get Sam's attention as she was rubbing Sha're's hand with her thumb.

"How's she doin'?" he asked.

"No change for a while now. Dr. Fraiser's afraid she's slipping into a coma."

Again, Kawalsky thought about asking another question. Delaying the inevitable. Instead, he cleared his throat and shifted a bit on his feet.

"They're saying we've got to open fire, and the Asgard are still on full alert, but you know those guys. They won't stay forever."

Sam gently let go of Sha're's hand and stood up, looking Kawalsky square in the eyes.

"You're just going to give up?" she asked, evenly, trying her hardest not to sound insubordinate but possibly failing.

"It's not my call, and it isn't yours."

"Has Morpheus's ship been active at all since they got over there?"

"No. Not that we can tell."

"Exactly. How do we know they weren't able to disable it--"

A girl from the bridge came running around the corner, interrupting their conversation.

"Excuse me, Major, Captain. The Goa'uld ship has gone black."

"Black?"

"Yes, sir. Black, dark. The ship's systems seem to have all gone offline. It's just... floating there in space."

Kawalsky looked at Sam, shrugging.

"I said they might--"

"Don't get your hopes up just yet, Captain. This could be very good, but it could also be very bad."

\---

 

When they reached the heart of the ship, breathless and heads aching from the lowered amount of oxygen, the rest of the ship's lighting came back online with a final loud jolt. At a distance, the sound of Jaffa getting to their feet echoed, and Jack looked at the girl—Pasithea, Sha're, whatever her name was.

Teal'c, Daniel, and the other Jack tried to open the doors, but the locking systems seemed to be back in place as well.

"Can you open it?" he asked the girl.

"I must try," she agreed, pushing past and opening the crystal panel, quickly removing one after the other in an enigmatic pattern.

The approaching footsteps of the Jaffa kept getting louder and louder until finally there was a hiss and the door to the center chamber opened.

"Hurry up!" Jack commanded, looking at the other version of him that had been bringing up the rear. Even looking at him made his body hurt worse, crying out for home and a place that was both completely familiar and yet completely foreign, wrong.

Inside, Teal'c helped force the doors along their tracks as Sha're replaced the crystals on the opposite side, trying her hardest to lock the doors without locking them in permanently.

"How do you know so much about this ship?" Daniel asked softly.

Sha're looked up, exhaling when her job was complete.

"I do not know. The demon who once lived within me knew these ships well."

In the center of the chamber lay a sarcophagus, larger in size than anyone in the room had ever seen. Despite the ornate decorations in silver and blue, that overlay the lid, a series of surprisingly utilitarian and tangled pipes and hoses extended from beneath it, snaking up into strangely positioned holes in every wall and in the ceiling of the chamber.

"Like what he's done with the place," remarked the Jack who wasn't suffering from a severe headache.

"Yeah, it's a beauty," replied the other Jack. "Could we focus on getting me—us--out of here, please? Daniel, is there anything in your encyclopedia of antique information that'll explain this?"

"...no," Daniel said after a moment, batting away the hoses as he approached the sarcophagus slowly. He looked at the panel on the side of it, noticing with a frown that it seemed to be on. "This is more Sam's area, although, it might be worth noting that it seems like somebody's home."

"Goldilocks doesn't really care right now," Jack grated out.

"You might if it opens."

The other Jack interrupted the conversation, wondering who this other man was that the other him seemed to know and trust so much.

"S—Captain Carter, is she on the _Prometheus_?"

"...yeah, why?" Daniel asked, a spark of hope lighting in his eyes as he turned to face the other man. It was strange, seeing Jack look at him the way someone looked at a stranger. Especially after that kiss—but that wasn't him. Daniel wasn't really sure that had ever been real or that the other Jack would ever remember it, so he quickly buried the thought. There were enough other complicated things going on to more than fill his quota for the day, so why add more?

"Is there any way we can try to reestablish radio contact?" he asked, going over to the flight controls, looking out and seeing Earth's flagship in the distance, flanked by several Asgard ships.

"The radios ceased functionality when we arrived here," Teal'c explained, joining the Colonel he knew at the controls, finding the appropriate controls to contact the other ships.

\---

 

Inside the _Prometheus_, the rattle of human and Asgard voices echoed back and forth over the comm systems until they were suddenly silenced.

"We're being hailed," said the young woman who had taken the seat at the comm system.

"Who's being hailed?" the _Prometheus_'s captain asked.

"All of us. The _Prometheus_, the Asgard ships—anything else that happened to be within a several light year radius of here, possibly."

_"This is Teal'c of SG-1, speaking,"_ Teal'c said into the ship's comm system. _"Does anyone read?"_

"Go ahead, Teal'c," the girl at the comm replied, glancing up at Major Kawalsky and Captain Carter and nodding toward the seat, offering it to either of them.

At first, both of them stayed still, but then another voice came through the uplink.

_"Listen, anyone who can hear—Captain Carter, are you out there? This Colonel O'Neill—well, one of us and Teal'c and two other people—and we've got something we think you might be able to help us out with."_

Sam swallowed her sigh of relief and made her way as professionally as she could to the comm.

"Yes, sir?"

_"...Jackson, your name was? Yeah, come here. You explain it."_

_"Me? ...hi, hello, Sam? This is Daniel Jackson, and like Ja—Colonel O'Neill just said, there's something here that I really wish you could see. Cliff Notes version: it seems that all of the Jaffa onboard are mechanical and the only way we have of stopping them is to cut the power, but the ship seemed to have a way of restarting by itself after a period of time. There's a sarcophagus on board, and it has pipes—hoses or something—that seem to go all through the ship. Anything you can make of that or help us with?"_

Sam blinked a few times, trying to process this wealth of information when they had just had none. Instead of immediately replying through the comm, she pressed the button and simply said, after a pause and a breath:

"Your position is secure?"

_"For the moment."_

"...right. Look, I'm sorry, but I have an idea, but I have to find something out first."

Then she let go of the button and turned to the captain.

"Have one of the Asgard ships run a complete thermal scan on the ship."

\---

The silence that followed was almost as frustrating as the previous complete lack of contact, Jack thought, as he leaned against the controls.

"We're sitting ducks here. We don't even have any weapons to stand a fighting chance if they do manage to bust in here."

"Carter'll pull through," the other O'Neill replied, seated with his back against the sarcophagus and some of its wires, not caring if he woke up whatever was in it. He was sure that his head was in a bad enough mood to kill whatever might come out if it came to it.

"Hey uh... sorry, about the uh--" his double tried, gesturing to his head and neck and finally to himself.

"For what? Being alive. Yeah, I know, it's a shame."

"That is how I indeed knew that this O'Neill was you," Teal'c remarked with the slightest hint of a smile.

"Hey, watch it."

Daniel rolled his eyes but found that he was smiling. He looked around to check on Sha're, only she wasn't there.

"Sha're?!" he asked, standing up and looking around, feeling that same gutted panic that he felt every time she disappeared. It never got any easier.

\---

 

Sha're furrowed her brow and felt pain all over her body again for a moment. Then, it concentrated simply in the top of her left hand and she opened her eyes, met with terribly bright light. She groaned softly, trying to command use of her vocal cords. Then, a familiar face stood over her from above.

"You're waking up?" Dr. Fraiser asked.

"Where's Daniel? O'Neill?" she asked.

"They... are aboard the enemy ship. Honey, you're going to have to calm down. Let me check you out and then I'll go and ask."

Sha're did not like the idea of waiting at all, but she swallowed hard and nodded, letting Dr. Fraiser help her sit up.

\---

_"Uh... there appears to be one less of us now,"_ Jack relayed through the comm, knowing he was interrupting, but this seemed like something worthy of note.

Kawalsky frowned, not liking the sound of that, but he decided to keep quiet while Jack was talking.

Dr. Fraiser made it to the bridge a moment later and listened before she spoke up.

"Excuse me. Dr. Carter, may I speak with you for a moment?"

Sam looked up from the transmission they had received from Thor's ship moments before, looking into her friend's eyes.

"Janet?"

"Sha're is awake. She's stable, but she's asking about Mr. Jackson and... the other Colonel O'Neill. She's being so insistent, I'm afraid if I don't come back with something to tell her--"

"We're speaking to them right now," Sam replied quickly, and Janet nodded and simply stood, waiting so she would know what had happened. Curious, in spite of herself.

"Sir?" Sam asked.

_"Go ahead."_

"There are only five heat signatures that indicate human or animal life, all five of them where you are now."

_"There's four of us here now, unless that girl became invisible."_

Sam's eyes went to Janet's again and Janet shrugged. She had no idea--"that girl" could easily be Sha're... somehow. She had seen stranger things since she had been working for the SGC.

"Yes, sir. The fifth is likely the occupant of the sarcophagus. The readings that the Asgard took from the ship indicate that the ship is restarting itself because the vast majority of its power allocation is to the life support systems. From everything you're telling me and their readings, it seems that the entire ship is just a huge life support system. According to the Asgard, Morpheus and his allies went out of favor among the other System Lords about a hundred years ago, and most of them were executed. Looks like Morpheus managed to escape cobbling together whatever he could find, but without a new host and all the damage taken in the fight to get out, it sounds like he's been functioning almost entirely on life support for a decade or more."

_"You mean to tell me he toppled the other System Lords from a hospital bed?"_

"Apparently."

\---

"That would explain the strange technology and those chairs," Daniel remarked to the Jack he knew. "They looked like the Gamekeeper's chairs. Maybe Morpheus built a world for himself that he could subjugate and that mirror--"

"Yeah, yeah, I don't care. I'm never going back there again, and his world can stay outta mine."

"So what are we supposed to do about it?" Jack continued asking Sam, ignoring the other him and his friend in the background.

_"You've got to disable the mirror and that should render the ship useless. Like pulling the plug on a life support machine. Thor is on standby to fire a targeted electromagnetic pulse at the ship to disable the 'robot Jaffa' you were talking about. He seems to think it'll work, based on the scans they took."_

"Roger that," Jack replied, dropping communications and heading to the sarcophagus where he began haphazardly tearing hose after hose after hose from where it connected. "You gonna help me?" he asked no one in particular.

The attempts of the robot Jaffa to get inside got louder and louder for a moment until they were suddenly completely silent, the ship utterly black again.

The hoses became easier to disconnect after that, and almost feverishly Daniel, Jack, and Teal'c disconnected every single one of them. Then, the interior of the ship got a bit warmer, and everything was completely silent.

~~~

 

"Looks like they've got everything offline," the captain relayed from another transmission from Thor's ship.

"That means we can't contact them," Kawalsky pointed out with a bit of dread.

Then, a more static sound burst from the speakers and Jack's voice came through from his ordinary radio.

_"It's getting awful hot in here."_

Sam was relieved for a moment, but then she realized what that meant and her eyes widened.

"The life support is off, and they've got no way of getting out of there--"

The captain overrode the comm system and spoke to it.

"Colonel O'Neill, hang tight. We're bringing you home."

And with that, the _Prometheus_ began its smooth approach the silent, dark ship as it slowly died.

\---

 

Jack had never been less relieved to be back on home soil. Because it wasn't really home soil and his head felt like it was splitting apart. Still, Daniel was by his side, helping him to the medical bay step by step.

"That's the last time I ever go anywhere exciting with you."

Daniel groaned a little and looked up.

"Last time I offer to go," he replied in turn.

Dr. Fraiser met them at the door and had a quick look at Jack.

"I really don't know how to treat this--"

"There's nothin' you can do, Doc. Nothing but us goin'--"

"Home," Sha're finished, coming out from changing back into her SGC uniform from the hospital gown she had been wearing.

"Sha're," Jack and Daniel said in unison. Jack was beginning to think that she was a little bit scarier than she would have been as a ghost.

"Thank you for your help, Dr. Fraiser," she said, shaking her hand awkwardly.

Jack watched as she then reached out and found each of their little cereal box toy transporters and fiddled with a few things on them.

"I told ya, Daniel. She's gotta be a scientist."

Daniel smiled a bit sadly at her, looking into her eyes and trying once again to memorize them in spite of himself. He knew what was coming, even if she hadn't told him.

She gave both of their transporters back to them as Dr. Fraiser looked at them curiously.

"Uh... Doc, you might wanna step behind an X-ray apron or something. I don't have any idea what these things do to your cells," Jack warned, smiling at her. She was one of the people he'd be glad to see when they got home again.

"What--" she started to ask, but then Sha're, placing Daniel's firmly in his hand and reaching up to stroke his cheek, just once, took a step away from the three of them and pressed the button on hers. And in a single moment, she was gone, as if she had never been there at all.

Blinking a few times, all Dr. Fraiser could say in response was, "I see."

She took a few cautious steps back and smiled at both of them, looking at Daniel and wondering just how it was that she remembered him. She felt a little sad that she hadn't actually ever known him.

And then, after Jack grumbled something else about killing his companion when they got home for making him have to do this, she was alone.

~~~

Both sprawled out in opposite directions on Jack's living room floor; both Jack and Daniel groaned.

Jack sat up a moment before Daniel did and tossed his trasnporter across the room and into the trashcan.

Daniel looked at it with mild fascination.

"Don't you d--" Jack warned as Daniel pressed the button firmly once.

"Doesn't work anymore."

"You had no way of knowing that. If you had blinked away again--"

"I knew."

"You didn't."

"Did."

"Just throw the damn thing away."

Daniel didn't do that, but he did set it down on the coffee table, putting up both his hands to show submission.

"Did all of that really just happen?" he wondered aloud, reaching up and feeling for the cut that had never actually been there. He remembered feeling it even though, apparently, it hadn't been real there either. And there were other things he remembered feeling that made him swallow hard, realizing with a sort of nervous crashing sensation in his chest that Jack may or may not have the same memories. He was never going to drink with Jack again. Ever.

"Daniel, are you... really all right? All of that?"

"Sha're is happy, and... I think... I will be, too," Daniel said after a long consideration.

"You mean that?"

"Yeah, I do."

"What about all that..." Jack tried to describe, but he couldn't say it, could only gesture to his own face and then to Daniel's cheek.

"Are you talking about... kissing me?" Daniel ventured, saying it even though he braced himself for dire consequences. He couldn't stand not ever saying it and now might be the one chance he got. Oh well, so much for never drinking again. Now, maybe, all he'd ever do with Jack outside of work was drink.

"What? No—I meant the cut--" Jack stammered, but it wasn't indignant, it was nervous.

"...do you wanna talk about it?" Daniel asked, trying to keep from smiling as it pulled at his lips. He just felt so relieved that a smile seemed to be the natural response, but more than that...

"What, your cut?" Jack asked, looked down almost bashfully as they both sat there in the floor like kids.

"No," Daniel said, the word loaded in a way that meant he knew that Jack was just playing dumb. He kept right on looking at Jack, intently, prying slowly and refusing to give an inch.

Jack sighed and resigned himself to having to have this conversation.

"Daniel, we don't ever have to talk about that again. I'm sorry that—and it didn't really happen."

"It did in your head. ...in mine."

"So?"

"So, what I'm asking is... is there maybe a reason for that? I didn't..." Daniel swallowed hard, beginning to think that saying this at all had been a terrible idea.

"A reason for what?"

"You and I both..."

"Daniel..." Jack said, but his eyes met Daniel's again and he felt that strange pull. He discovered it wasn't just a trick of his imagination, much to his brief horror.

Daniel felt it too and leaned in, cautiously, keeping his eyes open until a fraction of a second before he pressed his lips to Jack's.

Jack did manage to keep himself passive for just a moment, but then he found himself once again kissing back against Daniel's soft, warm, and very real lips. If he had had any doubts before, he knew that all of that had just happened because _this_ was happening and there was no way in hell it would have happened before. For a long time he felt himself being pulled closer and closer, enticed by the comfort and the heat and Daniel himself. He felt his own legs touch against Daniel's shins as he leaned forward, their shoulders almost touching as they were starting to lean down against the floor, but then he forced himself to break the kiss, taking a deep breath, his heart pounding in his ears.

He sat back up again and Daniel did too with a start, looking at him like he was terribly frightened.

Jack smiled a little at him, fighting an even bigger smile. Then he began to laugh and he stopped trying to control it. He took another deep breath though, feeling his heart rattle against his ribcage in a way that the worst firefight didn't make it. He slowly got onto his knees and began to work his way to his feet, steadying himself on the edge of the sofa—he was getting to old to bounce around like he was in grade school. Before he stood up, he gently patted at Daniel's knee, hardly able to believe that he'd just done it but only grinning even more stupidly because of it.

"I need a drink," he said, nodding his head slightly to invite Daniel toward the kitchen.

Daniel sat there for a moment, trying to process all of what had just happened. Then he realized that he wouldn't be able to process for quite some time what had happened.

He reached for the television remote and turned it on, watching it and wondering why Jack had it in such a strange corner briefly. He changed the channel quickly and turned the volume down before Jack noticed that the Simpsons were on again, and he flicked through until he found the Weather Channel. Glancing down at the bottom of the screen, he realized that it was the same day they had left, little more than ten minutes later. He turned off the TV, taking in another sharp intake of breath.

He wasn't Sam, or any astrophysicist for that matter, but even if he had been he wasn't sure that he would ever understand how all of this had been possible. But as he looked at the little 'cereal box toy' on the table, he knew that it had.

Sha're wasn't here anymore, but she was somewhere, happy. And she _had_ been standing right here. She hadn't been a hallucination, and somewhere out there she was still very, very alive. A monster had taken her, but Sha're was something that he knew would always be there, just inside his mind. Immortal.

And a word echoed in his ears, for just a moment: _Pasithea_\--goddess of hallucinations. Then it was gone again, an echo.

"Daniel, you comin'?" Jack called, as if nothing were out of the ordinary or strange. Things were better than fine.

Daniel did get up from the floor and kicked off his shoes again, knowing Jack didn't like them on the carpet for very long. It meant he had to vacuum more often. He padded slowly toward the kitchen, a smile on his face as he rounded the corner and took the beer that Jack offered to him, glancing down a little shyly.

He didn't know where this was leading, no more than he had ever known where his life was going. But standing there, in a kitchen, on Earth, he felt alive again.

And when he did look up at Jack again, not able to stop the nervous smile that followed as he swallowed the beer quickly—but not too quickly he reminded himself—he knew why. It was because Jack was here. Jack, the impossible, intolerant, ignorant man who had saved his life, who still saved his life, who had given him the one thing he had needed from the first time he had stepped through a Stargate to the last time this morning.

Hope.


End file.
